Article of Impeachment
If you pay attention to politics (reading articles, watching the shows, get worked up on Twitter, or waiting for you IssueVoter alert emails), or at this point, even if you don’t, you’ve been hearing about impeachment ad nauseum. The showmanship, the party politics, and literal shouting has taken up a lot of space in the media, often at the expense of actually explaining what is happening. Instead of more punditry, here is your one-stop-shop for all the impeachment basics:
Impeachment Check
At its core, impeachment is a check on the president. Much of the constitution is designed to avoid giving too much power to a given branch of government and especially to prevent a president from abusing their status. Having just gotten away from a king in England, the founders took a lot of care to not end up back under a ruler with absolute authority. Thus, Congress got the ability to impeach a sitting President for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
It’s worth noting that the types of crimes a president can get impeached for aren’t necessarily what the average, modern-day person would consider when they think of crimes. The general idea is that you don’t want a president abusing the powers of his office or acting above the law. “High crimes” in this case doesn’t mean “felony”, but instead describes a crime that can only be committed by someone with (high) authority.
Much of the debate around President Trump’s impeachment is about whether or not his actions constitute a high crime or misdemeanor and worthy of impeachment.
Congress was granted the sole power of impeachment and it’s the job of both the House and Senate. The easiest way to think of the process of impeachment is like a trial. The House investigates and charges the president with a crime and then the Senate acts as the jury and decides if he’s guilty with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (currently John Roberts) acting as the judge. If the president is convicted of a crime in the Senate, he is removed from office. Check out the New York Times for a more in-depth chart.
Historically Speaking
The U.S. has had 3 presidents face impeachment prior to President Trump, but no one has been removed from office through impeachment. In 1868, Andrew Johnson had charges brought against him over failing to enforce the Reconstruction Act and violating the newly-passed Tenure of Office Act that restricted his ability to fire executive branch members that had been approved by Congress. Johnson faced 11 articles, but he was entirely acquitted in the Senate.
The next impeachment was for Richard Nixon in the early 70s. As the Watergate scandal began to unravel, Nixon was accused of obstruction of justice, contempt of Congress, and abuse of power as he tried to cover up Watergate. Before the House could vote on articles of impeachment, Nixon resigned, making him the first president to be removed during an impeachment process (even though he wasn’t removed by the impeachment process).
Prior to Trump, Bill Clinton was the most recent president to face impeachment after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 1998, Clinton was charged with lying under oath and obstructing Congress. While the articles passed the House, they were voted down in the Senate and Clinton was acquitted and finished out his second term.
What Did Trump (Allegedly) Do?
People have been talking about a Trump impeachment since the day he took office and there have been moments in the past where it looked like the House may try to impeach him. Most notable was the Mueller report from the spring that culminated in a lot of information, but not an impeachment process. It wasn’t until a whistleblower shared that President Trump had a phone call with the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and it was seen as an abuse of power, that the impeachment ball really started rolling.
Explaining the arguments of the Ukraine call and everything since then deserves an entirely separate article, but in short: The claim from the phone call was that Trump attempted to keep military aid from Ukraine unless they began an investigation into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. There are, frankly, endless arguments and discussion to be had within every word of that last sentence, but it boils down to the charge that Trump tried to bribe the president of a foreign country into investigating the son of a major political rival.
Donald Trump, These Are Your Articles
On September 24th, Nancy Pelosi (the Speaker of the House) announced a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. This led to investigations in House committee and the public hearings that have been all over the news in the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. On December 10th, 2 articles of impeachment were announced.
Article 1: Abuse of Power
This charge relates directly Ukraine, saying Trump abused the power of his office to benefit his re-election by seeking help from a foreign country to damage his political rival. This includes misuse of taxpayer dollars that were temporarily withheld from Ukraine as a bribe or quid pro quo.
Article 2: Obstruction of Congress
This article charges Trump with obstruction after refusing to comply with subpoenas and blocking testimony and documents that had been requested throughout the impeachment process.
Is It Almost Over?
Maybe. While impeachment is now entering a new stage, it’s hard to tell how long it will last. The House just announced the 2 articles of impeachment this week, so the next steps will be a House debate and markup of the article, similar to how normal bills are handled. After this the House will vote on articles and they will move to the Senate. While the House could vote down the articles, they only require a simple majority to pass and it’s very unlikely that the Democrat-led House wouldn’t pass the articles.
Once the articles move out of the House, it will be up to Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, the majority and minority leaders in the Senate, to try and decide on how the Senate trial will proceed. The leaders haven’t met to discuss proceedings yet, but if they can’t compromise there is an opportunity for a group of 51 Senators to decide how the process will go. If that still fails, Leader McConnell has said that they would likely, at the very least, have the House present its argument, the president’s lawyers present their arguments, and then Chief Justice Roberts will present motions that the Senate can vote on.
To get impeached in the Senate, there would need to be a 2/3rd majority (also known as a super majority) vote to convict President Trump on at least 1 article of impeachment. If he is convicted, Trump will be removed from office and Vice President Pence would take over. If a super majority isn’t reached, President Trump will be acquitted. Either way, this will be the end of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
What can you do?
By far the best thing you can do it contact your representative. Unfortunately, it’s politics and decision-making is often tied to re-election chances. Congresspeople rely on polls (who answers those anyways?) unless their constituents tell them what they think. Make your voice heard, call your rep, and get ready for 2020. Read more at IssueVoter.org and vote so your congressperson knows where you stand here!
Read More:
Read the Articles of Impeachment Against President Trump (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/10/us/politics/articles-impeachment-document-pdf.html
