What Is Impeachment?

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, announced on Tuesday the opening of an investigation within an impeachment process against President Donald Trump as a result of new revelations about the presumed pressure from the president to Ukraine to investigate to Joe Biden, one of his political rivals.

After Pelosi's announcement, what will happen?

Under the United States Constitution, Congress can force the removal of presidents before their term ends through an impeachment, impeachment. Who has the authority to open this process is the president of the House of Representatives, a position that Pelosi now occupies.

Here are the five main points of an impeachment.

• After an investigative process like the one Pelosi has opened, the House presents the charges against the President, the so-called articles of impeachment, to a vote of its plenary session. If the majority approves, the president is officially charged.
• The process at that time is transferred to the Senate, where the trial is supervised by the president of the Supreme Court.
• The President has the right to have his lawyers and the members of the Senate serve as a jury.
• A team of House lawmakers, known as managers, play the role of prosecutors.
• The president is removed if at least two-thirds of the senators find him guilty.
• The vice president assumes the vacant position.

Only three presidents have been impeached so far in the history of the United States. The first was Andrew Johnson in 1868, who managed to save his head because his rivals were left with a two-thirds vote necessary to find him guilty. The second impeachment was faced by Bill Clinton in 1998, when the House charged him with various charges related to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Like Johnson, he held the post after the number of votes was not reached to find him guilty.

Another president who faced impeachment was Richard M. Nixon in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal, but the Republican resigned from the presidency before the House of Representatives voted to impeach him.