Impeachment
The word has dominated headlines, newscasts, and political conversations for the past four months, and on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019, the issue came to a head: House lawmakers voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
Now that the president is impeached, many questions remain. What is impeachment? What is its significance? How did we get here? What happens next?
Amid the whirlwind of information, televised hearings, and a political firestorm, here's a breakdown of impeachment and its role in American history.
Definition
By general definition, impeachment means to charge someone with a crime or misdemeanor. In a political context, the word indicates the legislative body, Congress, leveling charges against a governmental official, which includes the president, vice president, and all other civil officers of the United States. The charges can apply to, but are not limited to, criminal conduct.
Impeachment is the legislature's most powerful check on governmental power. It provides a systematic form of accountability. Many scholars also see it as a way to ensure separation of powers in a democratic society. It’s important to note that while impeachment is a method to remove someone from office, it does not directly mean removal. Rather, impeachment is the system that allows Congress to formally accuse a federal official of a political offense.
Impeachment by the U.S. House triggers a trial in the U.S. Senate. If the Senate finds the impeached official guilty of the charge or charges, that official can then be removed from office.
When to impeach
Through the Constitution, impeachment is reserved for those who have committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Note this last phrase: high crimes and misdemeanors. It broadly encompasses allegations of misconduct. The House of Representatives impeached President Trump for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
High crimes and misdemeanors, unlike treason and bribery, does not merely mean indictable criminality because impeachment is a political, not criminal process. This means Congress has no power to impose criminal penalties, such as jail time or fines, if an official is found guilty of the charges. Moreover, the phrase has historically allowed Congress the flexibility to impeach an official for acts that compromise national security or erode democracy, even if those acts are not criminal.
Alexander Hamilton encapsulates this concept in the Federalist Papers. He described high crimes and misdemeanors as “abuse or violation of some public trust.” This idea has prevailed, more or less, throughout modern history. However, because there is no prescribed framework of events that constitute high crimes and misdemeanors, impeachable offenses are often subject to the interpretation of Congress and highly debated among party members.
What does impeachment do?
Think of the impeachment process as a political court. If lawmakers decide to move forward with impeachment, the House plays the role of prosecutor, and the Senate acts as the collective jury. Articles of Impeachment are the charges, and removal from office is the potential punishment.
The process plays out at follows:
1. An executive official does something that could be considered treason, bribery, or a high crime or misdemeanor.
2. The House initiates a hearing. These hearings are conducted by the House Judiciary Committee. Following the hearings, the Judiciary Committee decides whether or not to prepare articles of impeachment. These are formal charges against the official.
3. The House Judiciary Committee votes on the articles of impeachment. If the articles gain a majority vote, the entire House of Representatives votes on these same articles.
4. If the majority of the House votes to impeach the official on any of the articles, the official is considered impeached and must stand trial in the Senate.
5. The Senate votes on whether the official is guilty of the charges against him or her. If two-thirds of the Senate votes to convict the official, the official is removed from office. The Senate can also forbid the official from holding a governmental office again.
Separately, if an official’s impeachable offense also happens to be criminal, criminal courts can try to punish the person through the legal system.
History
Within the nearly 250 years of the Constitution’s lifespan, Congress has pursued impeachment against 19 people. Fifteen of those cases involved federal judges. Four, including the recent case against Trump, involved sitting presidents. Two presidents have been impeached, but none of them have been removed from office.
Andrew Johnson (D), 1865-1869
Andrew Johnson succeeded Abraham Lincoln after Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. His presidency came post-Civil War, during the Reconstruction period. The Democratic leader often clashed with the Republican-controlled Congress. Lawmakers eventually passed a controversial law banning Johnson from firing a legislator without Congressional permission, and in retaliation, Johnson fired Edwin Stanton, then-Secretary of War. The House voted for a slew of impeachment articles against Johnson, involving conspiracy against Congress, disobeying a law, and failing to enforce Reconstruction Acts. Lawmakers in the Senate, however, did not garner enough votes to convict Johnson and remove him from office.
Richard Nixon (R), 1969-1974
In 1972, Richard Nixon won a reelection term for president. During the election, burglars with ties to the White House broke into the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. It is unclear if Nixon had a hand in orchestrating the burglary, but he admitted to obstructing the investigation afterward. Later, the House Judiciary Committee voted on three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and defiance of subpoenas. Nixon resigned before the full House conducted their vote, so he was never technically impeached.
Bill Clinton (D), 1993-2001
Bill Clinton served as president from 1992-1996. During his presidency, a special counsel began investigating a land deal involving Clinton 20 years earlier. The investigation unveiled a larger picture of alleged misconduct, including misuse of FBI funds, and an illicit affair with a White House intern. The House of Representatives voted on two articles of impeachment, including lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Neither received two-thirds vote in the Senate, thus Clinton was acquitted.
President Donald Trump (R), 2016-present
That brings America to its current president, Donald J. Trump.
Calls for impeaching Trump started surfacing in 2017, amid the FBI’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But the current impeachment centers around another incident: Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to a call transcript, Trump asked Zelensky if he can “do us a favor” and “look into” the actions of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden worked for Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. Trump specifically referenced the firing of a top Ukrainian prosecutor. The president speculated that Biden had a hand in ousting this prosecutor in order to thwart a corruption investigation into Bursima, though Ukrainian officials deny that claim. Regardless, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate potential corruption involving Biden.
Trump also asked Zelensky to investigate a widely debunked theory that Ukrainians, not Russians, interfered in America’s 2016 election.
Why do lawmakers say his request is significant?
Former Vice President Joe Biden is Trump’s primary political rival going into the 2020 Elections.
Prior to the call, Congress allocated more than $300 million in aid to Ukraine. According to testimony and recently revealed documents, the Trump administration halted the aid before the phone call with Zelensky.
Ukraine is considered integral to U.S. foreign policy. The country provides a democratic buffer in Eastern Europe, and, contingent on U.S. funding, helps to contain Russia's authoritarian stronghold.
A series of events, including a still-anonymous whistleblower filing a complaint to Congress, catapulted the phone call to public scrutiny. By late August, news had circled Capitol Hill, and eventually unraveled into the impeachment inquiry.
Months of deposition, public hearings, and partisan debate ultimately amounted to two simple questions: Did the President of the United States withhold aid from a foreign country for his own, political benefit (i.e., did he engage in a “quid pro quo”), and even if he did, are these actions impeachable?
Democratic representatives argued Trump did in fact leverage his position as an international leader for his own political gain, and in doing so, compromised his national duty and America's collective security.
Republicans contended the President was simply rooting out corruption in a foreign nation, and regardless of his actions, what he did was not an impeachable offense.
In a vote that fell largely along party lines, House lawmakers impeached the President on two articles under the umbrella of high crimes and misdemeanors. These articles included abuse of power, for his conversation with Ukraine’s leader, and obstruction of Congress, for his refusal to cooperate with the House investigation into the matter.
Trump Impeach President Donald Trump is the third president impeached by Congress in American history. (WWMT/MGN Online).
What happens next
The impeachment process is now in the hands of the Senate, where lawmakers will hold a trial and vote on whether to remove the 45th U.S. President from office. If the process goes as planned, this trial is expected begin in January 2020.
The Senate process is much different than the House vote in two senses: Unlike in the House, the Senate is controlled by Republicans, many if not all of whom will likely vote against conviction. And in order to convict the president, the Senate needs not just a majority but a two-thirds majority vote in favor of conviction — a significant barrier for minority Democrats.
These statistics play favorably for Trump.
Right now Senate leaders also disagree on the process for the trial. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has indicated he wants a quick and speedy process, whereas Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, said he wants to hear from additional witnesses before initiating a vote.
Moreover, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, still harbors the articles of impeachment, claiming she wants more clarification on the trial's ground rules before passing the baton to the Senate.
Update
On Wednesday, Jan. 15, House lawmakers transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate chamber, ending a months-long stalemate and triggering the third, presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history.
Pelosi appointed seven House Democrats to prosecute the case: Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York, Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California, Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California, Val Demings of Florida, Sylvia Garcia of Texas and Jason Crow of Colorado.