Here are all the US presidents who have been impeached
Grace Panetta and Lauren Frias
5 hours ago
Donald Trump is the third US president to be impeached and the first to be
impeached twice. Reuters
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President Donald Trump is the first president in American history to be
impeached twice, with the House passing an article Wednesday charging him with
inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
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Trump was also impeached by the House in December 2019 on charges
of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted
him on February 5.
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Only three US presidents faced impeachment before Trump — Andrew Johnson in
1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached, while Richard Nixon resigned
before he could be impeached in 1974.
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Here's how the process went for them and how it compares with today's.
·
Read Insider's coverage of Wednesday's impeachment debate
on the House floor.
President Donald Trump in December 2019 became the
third president in US history to be impeached. Now, as of Wednesday, he is the
first president in American history to be impeached twice.
The Democratic-controlled House voted 232-197 to
impeach Trump on a charge of inciting a violent insurrection on the US
Capitol on January 6.
Ten House Republicans, including the
third-highest-ranking House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney, joined their
Democratic colleagues and voted in favor of Trump's impeachment.
The House will now transmit the articles to the
Senate, which will hold a trial on whether to convict Trump. The proceedings
will be overseen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and senators will
act as jurors.
The Senate is in recess until Tuesday, however, and
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's press secretary has said he won't
bring the upper chamber back into session early. That means the trial will most
likely begin after Joe Biden takes office on Wednesday.
The Senate would then be made up of 50 Democrats and
50 Republicans, with the Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia
set to be sworn in on the same day as Biden. A two-thirds majority of 67
senators is required to convict a federal officer.
McConnell is said to be livid with Trump over last
week's events at the Capitol as well as over Republicans' loss of control of
the Senate. As of Tuesday night, he was said to be "pleased" by the
prospect of Trump being impeached and was leaning toward a vote to
convict, The New York Times and Axios reported.
The Senate can still vote to convict Trump even after
he leaves office, and it has the option to bar Trump from holding federal
office ever again with a follow-up vote that would require support from only a
simple majority. The incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, will be able to
cast the tiebreaking 51st vote.
The House impeached Trump on two articles on December
18, 2019. These stemmed from Congress' investigation into whether Trump abused
his power by trying to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
On February 5, the Senate acquitted Trump, voting almost entirely
along party lines.
Congress has the power to impeach or remove presidents
or other federal officials from office if enough lawmakers find that they have
committed "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Three other presidents have faced impeachment
proceedings, but only two of those three were impeached.
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached,
charged with breaching the Tenure of Office Act, but the Senate narrowly
acquitted him by one vote. In 1974, President Richard Nixon faced an
impeachment inquiry, but he resigned before the House could impeach him. In
1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached, but he too was acquitted by the
Senate.
Here's how the process went for each of the presidents
who were impeached:
Andrew Johnson
President Andrew Johnson. Library of
Congress
Johnson was the first sitting president to ever face
impeachment proceedings.
It all began when he removed his secretary of war,
Edwin Stanton, from office in 1867, which breached the Tenure of Office Act.
The law meant he couldn't fire any important officials without first getting
the Senate's permission. At first, he had
suspended Stanton and replaced him, but when Congress intervened and reinstated
Stanton, Johnson fired him on February 21, 1868.
Three days later, on February 24, 1868, the House of
Representatives impeached Johnson by a vote of 126-47. The House said he'd
violated the law and disgraced the US Congress.
From March to May 1868, over 11 weeks, the Senate
tried Johnson's case and finally voted to acquit him. The vote was 35 guilty to
19 not guilty. One more guilty vote would have met the required two-thirds
that's necessary for a conviction.
Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. Time Life Pictures/White House/The LIFE Picture
Collection/Getty Images
Clinton was the second president to face impeachment
proceedings. In early 1994, he was dealing with scandals, beginning with a
financial investigation known as "Whitewater."
That same year, Paula Jones sued him, accusing the
president of sexual harassment. Clinton argued he had presidential immunity
from civil cases, but in 1997 the Supreme Court rejected his
argument.
In January 1998, during Jones' case, Clinton denied
under oath that he'd ever had an affair with the White House intern Monica
Lewinsky. But news of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky got out.
In July 1998, Clinton testified about the allegations
that he'd committed perjury by lying about his affair with Lewinsky. And by
August, he'd acknowledged having an affair with
Lewinsky.
Lewinsky had also recorded conversations of her
talking about the affair, and the transcripts of the conversation went public
in October 1998.
On October 8, 1998, just days after the tapes were
released, the House of Representatives voted for impeachment proceedings to
begin against Clinton. In a report released in September by the independent
counsel Ken Starr, there were 11 grounds for impeachment.
On December 11, 1998, the House approved three
articles of impeachment along party lines — alleging Clinton had lied to a
grand jury, committed perjury by denying his relationship with Lewinsky, and
obstructed justice. The next day, a fourth article was approved, which accused
Clinton of abusing his power.
On December 19, 1998, the House impeached Clinton for
two of the articles — perjury and obstruction of justice. The votes were
228-206 and 221-212, respectively, also largely along party lines. Despite
being impeached, Clinton refused to step down.
Clinton was tried by the Senate and acquitted on
February 12, 1999.
His perjury charge had a vote of 55 not guilty to 45 guilty, and
his obstruction-of-justice charge was 50 not guilty to 50 guilty.
They didn't meet the two-thirds majority necessary to convict.
Donald Trump
Trump at the White House. Reuters
Trump was impeached in December 2019 on two counts:
abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump on September
24, following a whistleblower complaint claiming that the president
abused his political power while seeking investigations into Democrats such as
Biden.
House investigators looked into whether Trump withheld
military aid to Ukraine to try to pressure the country into conducting and
publicly announcing an investigation into the Biden family.
Trump vehemently denied that there was any "quid
pro quo" in his conversations with Zelensky, Ukraine's president, and
blasted House Democrats for the impeachment investigation, equating it to
the Salem witch trials.
On December 18, 2019, the House voted along party lines, earning a majority
to charge the president on both counts. The House passed the abuse-of-power
article by a vote of 230 to 197 to 1 and the obstruction-of-Congress article by
a vote of 229 to 198 to 1.
The House voted for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to formally submit
the articles of impeachment to the Senate on January 15. US
Chief Justice John Roberts presided over the impeachment trial.
Senators failed to approve a motion to call witnesses
to testify in the impeachment trial with a vote of 51-49 against it.
The Senate, at the time, consisted of 53 Republicans,
45 Democrats, and two independents who caucused with Democrats.
On February 5, Trump was cleared of both articles of
impeachment. On abuse of power, senators voted 52-48, with Sen. Mitt Romney breaking from the Republican Party to vote to
convict the president. Every other Republican voted to acquit, while
every Democrat voted to convict. On obstruction of Congress, senators voted
straight down party lines, 53-47.
James Pasley and Pamela Engel contributed to a previous version of this article.
From Business Insider
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