If a Sitting President Is Impeached Can They Become President Again

It'due south happening again.

Last month, in the final week of then-President Donald Trump's presidency, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for a second fourth dimension, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for inflaming a pro-Trump mob that attacked and briefly occupied the Usa Capitol on January half dozen. Trump'due south 2nd impeachment trial begins Tuesday, even though he is no longer in role.

Then why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? One respond is that removal is not the only sanction available if Trump is convicted: The Constitution also permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from belongings "any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called for the removal of President Trump from office.

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If Trump were to seek the presidency again in four years, he could be the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Party primary. A December Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 percent blessing rating among Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation as a whole. Another December poll by Quinnipiac University found that 77 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden because of widespread voter fraud — a lie that Trump repeated fifty-fifty as his supporters wreaked havoc in the Capitol in Jan.

Disqualifying Trump from holding office, in other words, wouldn't merely eliminate the run a risk that America'southward almost prominent adversary of republic would occupy the White House over again. Information technology would too make way for other aggressive Republicans who hope to become president someday.

How disqualification works

Though Congress has the power to remove public officials via impeachment, this power is rarely used. Including Trump, who was impeached in late 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2020 ballot, only 20 officials (and but 3 presidents) accept been impeached past the House in all of American history. And, of these 20 impeached individuals, simply 11 were either convicted by the Senate or resigned their part after they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the House's decision to charge a public official with "loftier crimes and misdemeanors," the phrase the Constitution uses to depict offenses warranting removal of a high official. The House may impeach such an official by a elementary majority vote.

Afterward such a vote, the thing moves to the Senate, which will conduct a trial and determine whether to convict the impeached official (if the president is impeached, the Chief Justice of the United States shall preside over this trial). Convicting someone who is impeached requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate.

If the impeached official is convicted, the Senate then must make up one's mind what sanction to impose upon that official. Under the Constitution, "judgment in cases of impeachment shall non extend farther than to removal from function, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any part of honor, trust or profit nether the U.s.a.." So the Senate effectively must make up one's mind whether simply removing the official from role is an appropriate sanction, or whether permanent disqualification is warranted.

Although the Congress may merely remove and disqualify a public official, federal prosecutors may yet bring criminal charges confronting that official in federal court.

In all of American history, only 3 individuals — former federal judges West Humphreys, Robert Archibald, and Thomas Porteous — have been permanently barred from property time to come office.

The Constitution is silent on whether, after an official has already been impeached and removed from office, imposing the additional sanction of disqualification requires a supermajority vote. In the past, however, the Senate determined that a simple majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Gauge Archibald was disqualified by a vote of 39-35 after he was removed from office.

To be clear, such a simple majority vote may simply take place after the Senate has already voted to captive an impeached official. Two-thirds of the Senate must first agree to remove someone from office before that official can be disqualified — a simple majority cannot, interim on its own, disqualify an official from holding hereafter office.

Even if Trump is bedevilled past the Senate — an unlikely effect given that the Senate is still controlled by Republicans — impeachment could only cutting Trump's time in office short by a few days.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Whorl Telephone call via Getty Images

The Supreme Court has non ruled on whether uncomplicated majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public office after they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both disqualified in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a case before the Court that could have allowed the justices to rule on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

Withal, there is a strong constitutional argument that the Senate should be allowed to disqualify an individual by a simple majority vote, after that individual has already been convicted past a two-thirds majority.

In criminal trials, defendants typically savor far fewer procedural protections during the sentencing phase of their trial than they practice in the phase that determines their guilt or innocence. In trials non involving a possible death sentence, a defendant must be convicted by a jury, but the judgement can exist handed down by a single approximate.

A similar logic could be applied to impeachment trials. Before a public official is convicted by the Senate, they enjoy heightened procedural protections and must be establish guilty past a supermajority vote. Later on they are convicted, even so, they are stripped of those protections and their sentence may be determined by a elementary majority of the Senate.

In any event, overcoming the hurdle of convicting Trump will be difficult. If all 50 Senate Democrats agree together, they still need to convince at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump. And the overwhelming majority of Republicans already voted to declare Trump'due south second impeachment trial unconstitutional — so that'due south non a great sign for anyone hoping that Trump might be convicted.

The question for Republican senators, however, is whether they desire to risk having Trump as their standard-bearer in 2024.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/22220495/impeachment-trump-2024-election-bar-from-office

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