Can the President Go to Jail if Impeached and Convicted
Trump impeachment: Here'south how the process works
Trump became the showtime 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 will decide 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. xiii to impeach Trump for an unprecedented second fourth dimension for his part in the Jan. 6 anarchism and breach of the Capitol, which occurred as a joint session of Congress was ratifying the election of President Biden.
The boggling step of a 2d impeachment, which charged Trump with incitement of insurrection, took place but days before Trump was set to leave office. Only ii other presidents -- Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton -- accept been impeached and none have been bedevilled.
Different Trump's first impeachment in 2022 (in which no Republican voted to impeach), 10 members of the Firm GOP, including conference chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., voted for impeachment and denounced the president'south actions. Autonomous House impeachment managers argued in a brief ahead of his trial, which starts in earnest Feb. ix, that Trump diameter "unmistakable" responsibility for the siege and called it a "expose of celebrated proportions."
"He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue," the managers wrote.
While some Republicans have spoken out confronting Trump's rhetoric in the wake of the siege, it is unlikely that the erstwhile president will be convicted considering information technology would require at least 17 Republican Senators and all 50 Democrats to concur. Some GOP members have questioned the constitutionality of trying a one-time president.
Indeed, that's the argument that Trump'due south lawyers made in their own 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 riot.
"It is admitted that President Trump addressed a crowd at the Capitol ellipse on January half-dozen, 2022 as is his right under the First Amendment to the Constitution and expressed his opinion that the election results were suspect, as is contained in the full recording of the speech," the president'due south lawyers wrote. The lawyers denied that Trump participated in insurrection.
Meanwhile, concluding week, some 144 constitutional law scholars published a letter in The New York Times, calling a defense based on the Starting time Amendment "legally frivolous."
Here'due south how the impeachment process works:
The presidential impeachment procedure
An impeachment proceeding is the formal process by which a sitting president of the United States is accused of wrongdoing. Information technology is a political process and non a criminal process.
The articles of impeachment (in this instance there's just one) are the list of charges drafted confronting the president. The vice president and all ceremonious officers of the U.S. can also face impeachment.
The process begins in the Firm of Representatives, where whatsoever fellow member may make a suggestion to launch an impeachment proceeding. It is actually up to the speaker of the House in exercise, to determine whether or not to proceed with an research into the alleged wrongdoing, though any fellow member tin force a vote to impeach.
Over 210 House Democrats introduced the virtually recent article of impeachment on January. xi, 2021, contending Trump "demonstrated that he volition remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution if immune to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with cocky-governance and the rule of law."
The impeachment commodity, which seeks to bar Trump from holding office again, too cited Trump's controversial call with the Georgia Republican secretary of state where he urged him to "observe" enough votes for Trump to win the state and his efforts to "subvert and obstruct" certification of the vote.
And information technology cited the Constitution'due south 14th Amendment, noting that information technology "prohibits any person who has 'engaged in coup or rebellion against' the United States" from holding office.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats accelerated the procedure -- not holding whatever hearings -- and voted just a calendar week before the inauguration of President Biden.
The vote requires a uncomplicated majority vote, which is 50% plus one (218), afterward 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, merely the vagueness of the 3rd option has caused problems in the past.
"It was a central consequence with Andrew Johnson, and at that place was a question during Clinton'southward proceedings about whether his prevarication [to a federal grand jury] was a 'low' crime or a 'high' crime," Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina who authored a book on the impeachment procedure, told ABC News.
According to Suzanna Sherry, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who specializes in ramble constabulary, "nobody knows" what is specifically included or not included in the Constitution's broad definition of "loftier crimes and misdemeanors."
"It's only happened twice and then the general idea is that it means any the House and the Senate recall it means," Sherry said before Trump's showtime impeachment, and even if the Firm approves the article or manufactures of impeachment, the senators can choose to vote confronting the manufactures if they feel they are not appropriate.
Where does the Senate come in?
The Senate is tasked with treatment the impeachment trial, which is presided over by the chief justice of the The states in the instance 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'south nearly senior member of the majority political party.
"The president pro tempore has historically presided over Senate impeachment trials of not-presidents," Leahy said in a argument in Jan. "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 adjuration that I take extraordinarily seriously."
To remove a president from part, 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'due south case, the Senate fell one vote curt of removing him from office on all 3 counts.
In this trial, since the president has already left office, the existent punishment would come if the president were to exist convicted, when the Senate would be expected to vote on a motion to ban the former president from ever belongings federal office again.
While the Senate trial has the power to oust a president from office, and ban him or her from running for hereafter office, it does not have the power to send a president to jail. Disqualification from holding function, a separate process, requires a unproblematic bulk vote, co-ordinate to the Congressional Enquiry Service.
"The worst that tin happen is that he is removed from office, that's the sole penalization," Sherry said of sitting presidents.
Trump's lawyers argued in their brief ahead of the second trial that the Senate cannot bar Trump from belongings role in the futurity under the 14th Subpoena because removal is a precondition for disqualification and as a individual citizen the body has no jurisdiction over him.
That said, a president tin can face up criminal charges at a later betoken. Sherry points out that in the Constitution "the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to constabulary."
In a case in which a president was really removed from office, the vice president would presume office nether the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in 1967. And so the new president would nominate a new vice president who would have to be confirmed by a bulk of both houses of Congress.
What does an impeachment vote mean for a sitting president and for a former president?
A president can continue governing even after he or she has been impeached by the House of Representatives.
Trump continued to govern after his impeachment in December 2019, and of class, ran for reelection in 2020. Afterward Clinton was impeached on Dec. nineteen, 1998, he finished out his second term, which ended in January 2001, during which time he was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial. While Clinton connected governing, and the impeachment had no legal or official impact, his legacy is marred by the proceeding.
Past presidential impeachments
The Business firm voted to impeach Trump on Dec. 18, 2019, on 2 articles of impeachment, 1 for corruption of power and one for obstruction of justice, in connection with his alleged quid pro quo telephone call with the Ukrainian president.
Following a iii-calendar week trial, the Republican controlled Senate acquitted Trump on February. 5, 2020, with only one Republican -- Paw Romney of Utah -- voting to convict.
Johnson faced impeachment in 1868 after clashing with the Republican-led Business firm over the "rights of those who had been freed from slavery," although firing his secretary of state of war, Edwin Stanton, who was backed past the Republicans, led to the impeachment effort. The manufactures of impeachment centered on the Stanton event, co-ordinate to the Senate.
Clinton, whose impeachment was connected to the camouflage of his matter with White House intern Monica Lewinsky while in office, was 22 votes away from reaching the necessary number of votes to captive in the Senate.
Richard Nixon faced three articles of impeachment related to the Watergate scandal, in which he allegedly obstructed the investigation and helped comprehend up the crimes surrounding the break-in.
But he didn't let the process get any further, resigning before the House could impeach him.
Editor'south Note: This story was originally published in 2022 and has been updated periodically.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/impeachment-process-works/story?id=51202880
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