Can a President Be Impeached and Stay in Office
What is impeachment and how does it work? 10 facts to know.
Must the Senate agree a trial? How does Trump differ from Clinton? Tin the president pardon himself? And much more than.
WASHINGTON — The congressional ability to remove a president from function through impeachment is the ultimate check on the chief executive. No president has ever been forced from the White Firm that style, although Richard Nixon resigned rather than having to face the well-nigh certainty that he would be removed from role.
Congress derives the authority from the Constitution. The term "impeachment" is ordinarily used to hateful removing someone from part, but it actually refers only to the filing of formal charges. If the Firm impeaches, the Senate then holds a trial on those charges to make up one's mind whether the officer — a president or any other federal official — should be removed and barred from holding federal office in the future.
The Firm has impeached nineteen people, more often than not federal judges. Two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were impeached, but the Senate voted not to convict either of them. Nixon resigned after the Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment just earlier the total Firm voted on them.
The Constitution provides that a president tin be impeached for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Treason and blackmail are well understood, only the Constitution does not define "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Congress has identified three types of comport that establish grounds for impeachment, including misusing an office for financial gain. But the misdeeds demand not be crimes. A president tin can be impeached for abusing the powers of the office or for interim in a manner considered incompatible with the office.
When Gerald Ford was a fellow member of the Business firm, he defined an impeachable crime as "whatever a bulk of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." In other words, impeachment and conviction by Congress is a political punishment, not a criminal one.
1. What constitutes an impeachable offense?
The founders intentionally kept the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" vague, because impeachment is meant to be a political human activity, not a legal one. Dissimilar in criminal police force, there are no clear rules for evaluating when a president has stepped over the constitutional line.
The founders rejected the term "maladministration" as grounds for impeachment. They didn't want a president tossed out simply because Congress didn't think he was doing a good job. Alexander Hamilton said impeachable offenses were those that involved corruption of public trust. The term is by and large understood to mean abuse of function that results in impairment to the public.
The House impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868 during a fight over reconstruction after the Civil War. Most of the articles of impeachment accused him of violating a federal police force, since repealed, that said a president could not remove certain officials without Senate approval.
The Business firm Judiciary Committee approved three manufactures of impeachment confronting Nixon in 1974, charging him with:
- Obstruction of justice, for impeding the investigation into the break-in at Democratic National Commission headquarters in the Watergate part edifice;
- Abuse of ability, for trying to use the CIA, FBI and other agencies to cover up the Watergate conspiracy; and
- Contempt of Congress, for refusing to turn over textile in response to congressional subpoenas.
The Firm approved ii articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton in 1998, charging him with:
- Lying under oath to a m jury about the nature of his relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones; and
- Obstacle of justice, for encouraging Lewinsky and others to make false statements and concealing gifts he had given her.
ii. How is the Trump investigation dissimilar from what happened with Clinton?
Three committees in the House — Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs — are conducting investigations, gathering documents and calling witnesses in the enquiry into Trump. In the Clinton impeachment, i committee, the House Judiciary, relied heavily on a report compiled by Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who led the investigation, that listed 11 possible grounds for impeachment in four categories — perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and abuse of power.
Business firm Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has said that while the Intelligence Committee volition have the lead in investigating Trump, the actual vote on specific articles of impeachment volition be conducted past the Judiciary Commission and could draw on the conclusions of other House committees, as well, though that seems unlikely. The process of voting on the articles, known as the commission mark-up, will be televised and will likely take place over several days.
Firm Judiciary took 6 days to recommend manufactures of impeachment against Nixon in July 1974 and three days to recommend manufactures of impeachment against Clinton in December 1998.
If approved past a simple majority, the manufactures are reported to the full House and are privileged, meaning they tin come up for immediate consideration, including potentially several days of argue. The president is impeached if the House approves whatsoever of the articles of impeachment past a simple majority vote. The House then appoints members to serve as "managers," or prosecutors, for the Senate trial.
iii. Must the House pass a resolution to officially launch an impeachment investigation?
The Constitution imposes no such requirement, and Business firm rules don't either, even though authorizing resolutions were passed in each of the 3 previous presidential impeachments.
Rep. Peter Rodino, D-N.J., who was chairman of House Judiciary in 1974 during the Nixon instance, called passing a resolution "a necessary step." Business firm rules does not place jurisdiction over impeachment in any specific committee, and Rodino said that in past impeachments the Business firm had passed a resolution to give the investigating committee subpoena power. Just the electric current House leadership has said that such a resolution isn't needed, because the relevant committees already accept the necessary subpoena and staffing authorization.
White House counsel Pat Cipollone is correct in saying that the House "has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the president without a majority of the Business firm taking political accountability for that decision" past passing a resolution.
But such a vote is not required. The Business firm has voted to impeach federal judges without passing a resolution to authorize an investigation, and the Firm procedure for impeaching judges and presidents is the same. Withal, House Democrats volition hold a vote Thursday to clarify the rules for public hearings, even though a federal judge said on Oct. 25 that "a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry."
4. Would passing a resolution give Congress say-so to get grand jury textile, such as testify gathered during the Robert Mueller investigation?
Not necessarily. A fight over this result is at present in federal court, and the Business firm won the beginning round.
The Business firm leans on what happened in 1974. Subsequently a federal grand jury in Washington finished an investigation of the Watergate scandal, it prepared a special report on its findings and recommended that its work exist forwarded to the Firm Judiciary Commission, which had begun impeachment proceedings.
Guess John Sirica ruled that while the one thousand jury's piece of work was hush-hush, he had the authorisation to release the material to the Firm. He said that the normal reasons for keeping grand jury proceedings secret — such as preventing the escape of someone who might exist indicted or insulating the grand jury from outside influence — no longer applied once the grand jury's piece of work was done. And he noted that Nixon did not object to letting the House committee get the material. That's an important fact.
A federal appeals court agreed with Sirica'due south decision, and the 1000 jury material was turned over to the House.
Since and then, the federal courts have narrowed the power of judges to declare exceptions to grand jury secrecy. Earlier this year, for instance, the D.C. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals said in a different case that there's no exception allowing historians to get access. The court said it interpreted what Sirica did in Watergate as allowed under a federal rule that allows giving grand jury material to the Business firm for "judicial proceedings." But that was said in a footnote: It was non the holding in the instance, and that comment did not make any new law.
The Justice Department's view is that the issue isn't settled. Information technology said in a contempo filing in the electric current lawsuit that no court has ever squarely decided whether a House impeachment proceeding qualifies every bit an exception to longstanding rules of chiliad jury secrecy. And if Trump — unlike Nixon — explicitly objects to turning the material over, that could exist a decisive cistron.
In late October, Federal District Court Judge Beryl Howell ordered the Justice Section to give the House Judiciary Committee an unredacted version of the Mueller study, forth with some underlying materials. She concluded that the requirement for preserving grand jury secrecy was outweighed by the House Judiciary Commission's need for the material in its impeachment investigation. The Justice Department immediately appealed.
5. Do the president's lawyers get to participate in the House impeachment hearings?
This point is sometimes misunderstood. After the White House counsel complained that no Trump lawyers have been allowed to accept part in the House committee sessions, many commentators said that the criticism was misplaced, because Trump's lawyers would get their gamble in the Senate trial, not in the House proceeding. But that's not how it has worked before.
In both the Nixon and Clinton proceedings, lawyers for the president were involved in the House impeachment procedure. In 1974, the Judiciary Committee gave Nixon'due south lawyers copies of documents and evidence, immune them to sit down in on all hearings, including those in executive session, and permitted them to question witnesses who testified before the committee. Clinton's lawyers were likewise allowed to present witnesses and to briefly question Starr, the contained counsel whose report formed the backbone of the case for impeachment.
In the current proceedings, the House Judiciary Committee recently adopted a rule allowing the president'south lawyers to reply to bear witness and testimony in writing. But there is no requirement for such an accommodation to the president's lawyers, and at that place was no such arrangement when the Business firm impeached Andrew Johnson.
six. Must the Senate hold a trial, or can it only sit on the Firm articles of impeachment?
The Constitution simply says the Senate has "the sole ability to try all impeachments," and some scholars have suggested this means the Senate is empowered merely not required to behave out this part. But Senate rules propose that it'south a duty, not an option. Note the word "shall" in Senate Impeachment Rule 1:
"Whensoever the Senate shall receive notice from the House of Representatives that managers are appointed on their part to acquit an impeachment against any person and are directed to comport manufactures of impeachment to the Senate, the Secretarial assistant of the Senate shall immediately inform the Firm of Representatives that the Senate is ready to receive the managers for the purpose of exhibiting such articles of impeachment, approvingly to such discover."
In any result, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said: "Under the impeachment rules of the Senate, we'll have the matter upward. ... Nosotros intend to do our constitutional responsibility."
7. How does a Senate trial work?
The Constitution lays out only 3 requirements: The principal justice presides over the Senate trial of a president (simply not the trial of any other official); each senator must be sworn (like to the way jurors take an oath); and a ii-thirds vote is required to convict on any commodity of impeachment.
Once the preliminaries are out of the fashion, the trial takes place under procedures similar to courtrooms. The House managers make an opening statement, followed by a statement from lawyers for the president.
During impeachments of judges, the testify is generally presented during commission hearings at which the House managers telephone call their witnesses, who tin be cross-examined. And then the contrary happens, with the president's counsel calling witnesses who can be cross-examined past the House managers. The Senate has yet to determine whether, if Trump is impeached, witnesses volition exist allowed to evidence to the total Senate.
There's no requirement for the president to appear, and he cannot be compelled to testify.
Like jurors in a trial, senators sit and listen. The rules say if they take questions, they can submit them in writing to exist asked by the chief justice.
Afterward both sides brand their closing arguments, the Senate begins deliberations, traditionally in closed session. The Senate so votes separately on each commodity of impeachment, which must take identify in open up session.
8. What is the role of the chief justice?
It'southward limited. The Senate has not adopted rules of evidence, but the rules give the chief justice the authority to determine on all evidentiary questions. He can also put the questions to the total Senate for a vote on admissibility. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who presided over the Clinton impeachment, quoted from Gilbert and Sullivan in responding to a letter inquiring most his time as presiding officer: "I did null in particular, and I did information technology very well."
ix. Could the president pardon himself if he'southward impeached?
No. The same constitutional provision that gives the president the power "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States" adds this phrase: "except in cases of impeachment."
ten. What would happen if the Senate convicted Trump?
He would be immediately removed from office, triggering the 25th Subpoena. Vice President Mike Pence would go president.
That would create a vacancy in the office of vice president, so Pence would nominate someone to succeed him, who would become vice president upon confirmation by both houses of Congress.
This is the procedure followed when Nixon resigned. Ford, the vice president, became president and nominated as vice president former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who was confirmed later extensive congressional hearings.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/what-impeachment-how-does-it-work-10-facts-know-n1072451
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