If a President Is Impeached Can Run for President Again

It'south happening over again.

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

So why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? Ane answer is that removal is not the only sanction available if Trump is convicted: The Constitution besides permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from belongings "whatever office of honour, trust or profit under the Usa."

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

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If Trump were to seek the presidency once more in four years, he could be the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Party master. A December Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 percent approval rating amidst Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation every bit a whole. Another December poll by Quinnipiac University institute that 77 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden because of widespread voter fraud — a lie that Trump repeated even as his supporters wreaked havoc in the Capitol in January.

Disqualifying Trump from holding role, in other words, wouldn't just eliminate the adventure that America's well-nigh prominent adversary of democracy would occupy the White House once again. It would also brand way for other ambitious 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 belatedly 2022 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2022 election, only xx officials (and only three presidents) take been impeached by the Firm in all of American history. And, of these 20 impeached individuals, merely 11 were either bedevilled past the Senate or resigned their office after they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the House'due south decision to accuse 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 past a simple majority vote.

After such a vote, the matter moves to the Senate, which will conduct a trial and decide whether to captive 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 ii-thirds majority vote in the Senate.

If the impeached official is convicted, the Senate then must decide what sanction to impose upon that official. Nether the Constitution, "judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit nether the United States." So the Senate effectively must determine whether but removing the official from function is an advisable sanction, or whether permanent disqualification is warranted.

Although the Congress may but remove and disqualify a public official, federal prosecutors may even so bring criminal charges against that official in federal court.

In all of American history, just three individuals — former federal judges West Humphreys, Robert Archibald, and Thomas Porteous — accept been permanently barred from holding futurity function.

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 by, however, the Senate determined that a unproblematic majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Judge Archibald was butterfingers by a vote of 39-35 later he was removed from office.

To be clear, such a simple majority vote may just 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 earlier that official can be butterfingers — a simple majority cannot, acting on its own, disqualify an official from holding future office.

Even if Trump is bedevilled by the Senate — an unlikely event given that the Senate is nonetheless controlled by Republicans — impeachment could only cut Trump'south time in role brusk by a few days.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether simple majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public office afterwards they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both disqualified in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a example earlier the Court that could take immune the justices to dominion on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

Notwithstanding, there is a stiff ramble statement that the Senate should be allowed to disqualify an individual past a simple majority vote, after that individual has already been convicted by a two-thirds majority.

In criminal trials, defendants typically enjoy far fewer procedural protections during the sentencing phase of their trial than they do in the phase that determines their guilt or innocence. In trials not involving a possible death sentence, a defendant must be convicted past a jury, but the sentence can exist handed downwards by a unmarried judge.

A similar logic could be applied to impeachment trials. Before a public official is convicted by the Senate, they savour heightened procedural protections and must exist plant guilty by a supermajority vote. After they are convicted, withal, they are stripped of those protections and their judgement may be determined past a unproblematic majority of the Senate.

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

The question for Republican senators, even so, is whether they want 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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