Can an Impeached President Be Re Elected Even if Not Removed From Office

Trump impeachment: Here's how the process works

Trump became the first president impeached twice.

Former President Donald Trump faces an unprecedented second impeachment trial this week. Adding to the historic nature of the proceeding is that he is no longer in office and the members of the Senate who volition make up one's mind his fate are among the victims in the Capitol siege, which he is accused of instigating.

The House of Representatives voted 232-197 on Jan. thirteen to impeach Trump for an unprecedented 2nd time for his function in the January. 6 riot and breach of the Capitol, which occurred as a articulation session of Congress was ratifying the election of President Biden.

The extraordinary step of a second impeachment, which charged Trump with incitement of coup, took place but days earlier Trump was set to get out office. Merely two other presidents -- Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton -- have been impeached and none take been convicted.

Unlike Trump's offset impeachment in 2022 (in which no Republican voted to impeach), 10 members of the House GOP, including briefing chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., voted for impeachment and denounced the president's deportment. Democratic House impeachment managers argued in a cursory ahead of his trial, which starts in earnest Feb. ix, that Trump diameter "unmistakable" responsibility for the siege and chosen it a "betrayal of historic proportions."

"He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them similar a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue," the managers wrote.

While some Republicans take spoken out against Trump's rhetoric in the wake of the siege, it is unlikely that the old president will be convicted because it would require at least 17 Republican Senators and all 50 Democrats to concur. Some GOP members accept questioned the constitutionality of trying a onetime president.

Indeed, that's the argument that Trump'southward lawyers fabricated in their ain brief ahead of the trial, calling the proceeding a "legal nullity" and leaving the door open up to argue the very claims of election fraud that some say sparked the anarchism.

"Information technology is admitted that President Trump addressed a crowd at the Capitol ellipse on January 6, 2022 every bit is his correct nether the Outset Amendment to the Constitution and expressed his stance that the election results were doubtable, as is contained in the full recording of the speech," the president's lawyers wrote. The lawyers denied that Trump participated in insurrection.

Meanwhile, last calendar week, some 144 constitutional law scholars published a alphabetic character in The New York Times, calling a defence force based on the First Subpoena "legally frivolous."

Here'south how the impeachment procedure works:

The presidential impeachment process

An impeachment proceeding is the formal process by which a sitting president of the Us is defendant of wrongdoing. It is a political process and not a criminal process.

The articles of impeachment (in this example there'south just ane) are the listing of charges drafted against the president. The vice president and all civil officers of the U.Due south. tin can besides face impeachment.

The process begins in the House of Representatives, where any member may make a proffer to launch an impeachment proceeding. It is really up to the speaker of the Firm in practise, to make up one's mind whether or not to keep with an inquiry into the declared wrongdoing, though any member can strength a vote to impeach.

Over 210 House Democrats introduced the most contempo article of impeachment on Jan. 11, 2021, contending Trump "demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, republic and the Constitution if allowed to remain in role and has acted in a way grossly incompatible with cocky-governance and the dominion of law."

The impeachment article, which seeks to bar Trump from holding office again, also cited Trump's controversial telephone call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where he urged him to "find" plenty votes for Trump to win the country and his efforts to "subvert and obstruct" certification of the vote.

And it cited the Constitution'due south 14th Amendment, noting that it "prohibits any person who has 'engaged in coup or rebellion against' the United states of america" from holding office.

Firm Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats accelerated the process -- not holding any hearings -- and voted just a week before the inauguration of President Biden.

The vote requires a simple majority vote, which is fifty% plus one (218), later which the president is impeached.

Trump now faces a trial on the article in the Senate.

Justification for impeachment

When it comes to impeachment, the Constitution lists "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," as justification for the proceedings, but the vagueness of the tertiary option has caused problems in the by.

"Information technology was a central consequence with Andrew Johnson, and there was a question during Clinton'due south proceedings about whether his lie [to a federal grand jury] was a 'low' crime or a 'high' crime," Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional police professor at the University of North Carolina who authored a volume on the impeachment process, told ABC News.

According to Suzanna Sherry, a police professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in constitutional police, "nobody knows" what is specifically included or not included in the Constitution's broad definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors."

"Information technology's simply happened twice so the full general idea is that information technology means whatever the Business firm and the Senate call back it means," Sherry said before Trump'south outset impeachment, and even if the House approves the article or articles of impeachment, the senators tin choose to vote against the articles if they experience they are not advisable.

Where does the Senate come in?

The Senate is tasked with treatment the impeachment trial, which is presided over by the master justice of the United States in the case of sitting presidents. However, in this unusual case, since Trump is not a sitting president, the largely ceremonial task has been left to the Senate pro tempore, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chamber'due south nearly senior member of the majority party.

"The president pro tempore has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of non-presidents," Leahy said in a statement in January. "When presiding over an impeachment trial, the president pro tempore takes an additional special oath to do impartial justice co-ordinate to the Constitution and the laws. It is an oath that I take extraordinarily seriously."

To remove a president from office, two-thirds of the members must vote in favor – at present 67 if all 100 senators are present and voting.

If the Senate fails to convict, a president is considered impeached but is not removed, as was the case with both Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. In Johnson's case, the Senate roughshod 1 vote curt of removing him from office on all three counts.

In this trial, since the president has already left office, the real penalization would come if the president were to be convicted, when the Senate would be expected to vote on a motion to ban the former president from ever holding federal office once again.

While the Senate trial has the power to oust a president from office, and ban him or her from running for future function, information technology does non have the power to transport a president to jail. Disqualification from property function, a separate process, requires a elementary majority vote, according to the Congressional Research Service.

"The worst that tin can happen is that he is removed from office, that'southward the sole punishment," Sherry said of sitting presidents.

Trump'due south lawyers argued in their cursory ahead of the second trial that the Senate cannot bar Trump from holding role in the future under the 14th Subpoena considering removal is a precondition for disqualification and as a individual citizen the body has no jurisdiction over him.

That said, a president can face criminal charges at a later indicate. Sherry points out that in the Constitution "the party bedevilled shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law."

In a case in which a president was actually removed from part, the vice president would assume office under the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967. So the new president would nominate a new vice president who would take to be confirmed by a majority of both houses of Congress.

What does an impeachment vote mean for a sitting president and for a former president?

A president tin can continue governing fifty-fifty later on he or she has been impeached past the House of Representatives.

Trump continued to govern after his impeachment in December 2019, and of form, ran for reelection in 2020. After Clinton was impeached on Dec. 19, 1998, he finished out his second term, which concluded in January 2001, during which fourth dimension he was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial. While Clinton continued governing, and the impeachment had no legal or official affect, his legacy is marred by the proceeding.

Past presidential impeachments

The House voted to impeach Trump on Dec. 18, 2019, on two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and 1 for obstruction of justice, in connection with his alleged quid pro quo call with the Ukrainian president.

Following a three-week trial, the Republican controlled Senate acquitted Trump on February. 5, 2020, with simply one Republican -- Hand Romney of Utah -- voting to captive.

Johnson faced impeachment in 1868 later on clashing with the Republican-led Firm over the "rights of those who had been freed from slavery," although firing his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who was backed past the Republicans, led to the impeachment effort. The articles of impeachment centered on the Stanton issue, according to the Senate.

Clinton, whose impeachment was connected to the embrace-up of his affair with White Business firm intern Monica Lewinsky while in part, was 22 votes away from reaching the necessary number of votes to captive in the Senate.

Richard Nixon faced 3 articles of impeachment related to the Watergate scandal, in which he allegedly obstructed the investigation and helped cover up the crimes surrounding the break-in.

Simply he didn't let the process get any farther, resigning before the Firm could impeach him.

Editor'due south Notation: This story was originally published in 2022 and has been updated periodically.

Lara Yebere