A few weeks ago, a hashtag trended on Twitter: #ImpeachTrump. Millions of people tweeted under the hashtag, calling for Donald Trump’s impeachment. But what is impeachment, really?
The U.S Constitution states that “the President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Because of that quote, it’s a common misconception that if you’re impeached, you’re automatically fired. That’s not true– in fact, getting removed from office is an entirely different trial. Impeachment is just a way for the legislature to formally press charges against a government officer. And how, exactly, do they do that?
First, the House of Representatives has to formally accuse the official in question. Once again, the Constitution says that impeachable offenses are “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” High crimes and misdemeanors doesn’t really have a clear definition, but it can mean things like bribery, perjury, and abuse of power. After the House of Representatives brings forth the impeachable offenses, they vote on the articles of impeachment, and if a majority votes in favor, the official is impeached. However, they aren’t removed from office– that’s the next step.
After the official is impeached, the Senate can then try them for their crimes. If at least two-thirds of the Senate votes for conviction, the official is removed from office, and the vice president would take over.
But how often does this happen? As you might expect, not very often.
Truth is, impeachment is an uncommon process. It’s so uncommon that, in total, the House of Representatives have only impeached sixteen federal officials and removed seven from office– and out of those sixteen, only two were presidents. Not a single president has been removed from office.
The first president to be impeached was our seventeenth, Andrew Johnson. During his presidency, Johnson passed the Reconstruction program, a policy that tried to restore the South after the Civil War. The Congress opposed the program, and even though he vetoed the act, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which said Johnson couldn’t remove any federal officials without approval from the Senate.
Johnson decided to rebel against the act and removed Edwin M. Stanton from office, replacing him with General Lorenzo Thomas. The House of Representatives used this as the basis of impeachment, and they won; however, when the Senate tried him, they were one vote short of the two-thirds majority, and Johnson remained in office.
The second president to be impeached was rather recent– the forty-second president, Bill Clinton. Clinton famously had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He denied the affair for months, infamously saying, under oath, that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman.” A man named Kenneth Starr published the “Starr Report” in which he described the affair in detail. The official grounds for his impeachment were perjury and obstruction of justice. He, too, was not removed from office, and carried out his full term.
But wait, wasn’t Richard Nixon impeached, too? Almost. Nixon covered up the infamous Watergate scandal and refused to hand over the evidence he had. The House had plenty of reasons to impeach him, and when he realized it was inevitable, he resigned from office.
So, the question everyone’s been asking: Could we impeach Trump? Maybe. I believe Trump is certainly capable of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. However, Republicans do currently own the House and the Senate, meaning if Trump were to do something bad enough for the House to press charges, the Senate probably wouldn’t vote him out of office.
The reality is that, most likely, we’re stuck with Trump for the next four years.
Comments are closed.