Whether you identify as liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, or any other place on the political spectrum, you have heard about the myriad of scandals associated with Trump and his presidency. Provided you have read a news article at any point between November 2016 and now, you should also know that people have constantly been speculating about the possibilities of impeaching Trump in relation to these scandals. Now is the time to put current and significant stock into this idea: the process of an impeachment inquiry of Trump has begun. I ask you to free your mind of every idea you have ever thought you have known about impeachment because this is not what we have ever known. The Trump presidency will have its own unique (and most likely convoluted) take on the age-old process of impeachment.
How does impeachment work? It starts when the House of Representatives moves to impeach an elected official, beginning the process of investigating and trying the crimes of said official. This trial happens through the Senate which acts as a court for the matter. The duties of a judge and jury that would exist in any other regular court case exist for and are enacted by the Senate as they examine the evidence presented in the case. To make their decision, to impeach or not to impeach, they vote according to their belief once they’ve been presented all evidence and arguments. Let’s say, in a hypothetical world, there is a president who has committed an impeachable offense: “treason, bribery, and other high crimes or misdemeanors.” These grounds for impeachment purposely walk the line between specific and vague so as to be usable for a wide variety of different cases. Option 1: this hypothetical Senate votes to not impeach this hypothetical president. The impeachment inquiry is over in all legal senses. Option 2: the hypothetical Senate reaches a two-thirds majority and votes to impeach the hypothetical president. What happens after Option 2 is chosen? The Senate can vote on whether or not they wish to remove the president from office. If they vote not to remove the president, the president stays in office, but the impeachment of that president was successful, leaving them with a stain on their reputation and political career, the public knowledge that they were held accountable for their actions, and disqualification from holding future offices. If a two-thirds majority of the Senate votes for it, it is possible for the president to be removed from office. Once the president is removed from office, the vice president raises to take their place.
Historically, only two presidents have successfully been impeached: President Andrew Johnson in 1868 and President Bill Clinton in 1998. While they were both impeached, the Senate did not vote in favor of removing either of them from office. So, as of right now, no president has been forcefully removed from office.
As of right now, the House of Representatives, through House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has announced the beginning of the process of impeachment on President Trump. This was prompted by the allegations, through a whistleblower, that Trump “pressured the president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son.” It was then discovered that several days prior to these allegations being made, Trump, through his staff, cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.
Now, we can think of impeachment in the context of Trump: what happens next? An official vote needs to be made in the House to officially move the process to the Senate. It is most likely that the vote would be in favor of proceeding due to the Democrat majority in the House, but even if that happens, it seems very likely that the Senate, having a Republican majority would shut down the process as quickly as possible. This is the sad truth in our hyper-partisan current political arena: every action is a tug of war between party interests as opposed to a compromise between the aisles.
Factually speaking, it is possible that the House could vote to move the inquiry to the Senate, and the Senate could vote to impeach Trump, possibly even voting to remove him from office. What else is at play here? There are still actual voters, American people, who support him, and it is quite possible that no matter what comes from this process, they will still vote for Trump. These people are the constituents of the very Representatives and Senators involved in moving the process forward, and these constituents’ views matter to their politicians, possibly affecting the way they act on the matter. What is probably the most perplexing factor at play is the precedent that Trump has set as his relationship to impeachment. Since the dawn of his presidency, people have been outspoken about their ideas for impeaching Trump, and for two years he has been investigated for his involvement in Russia’s interference with the 2016 Presidential Election. Despite this very clear interest in at least making a case for Trump’s presidential incompetency, Trump, his aids, and his campaign staff continue to stand by his complete and total distance from even the possibility of having done anything wrong. The next time someone voices a negative opinion, even a negative, indisputable fact, about President Trump, log on to Twitter and watch Trump’s account turn into a semi-automatic weapon, his Tweets his bullets, delivering blows about these statements being “fake news” or “PRESIDENTIAL HARRASSMENT!” When they deflect and deny, the American people overwhelmingly believe them and stop asking questions, but if the American people looked further, especially in instances like Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, they might not be so comfortable with looking the other way.
At this point, knowing all of these complicated factors involved in the process of impeaching Trump, I believe the best question to ask is “what is the purpose of proposing impeachment of Trump?
There are actually tremendous benefits from the House announcing their intent to begin the impeachment process. The Constitution is a very solid foundation on which the United States’ legal system works, and it protects the process of impeachment explicitly. The impeachment of Trump is therefore a guaranteed right stated in the Constitution, giving a very firm defense against scrutiny of the process. Trump has committed a plethora of actions that, while they may not technically disqualify him from being president, would implore any rational thinker to give a second thought to his ability to be the leader of the free world. Nancy Pelosi, in regards to impeachment of Trump, said “no one is above the law.” Impeachment at least gives the American people the ability to think about the actions of the president with scrutiny instead of blind faith, as some do. We might not be able to tell where this is going from here, but we all have to strap in, and pay attention, for this wild ride.