The History Of President Impeachments In The United States

On 18^th December Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S House of Representatives.

Donald Trump is said to have involved foreign governments to investigate his political rivals ahead of the 2020 presidential elections. He was also accused of obstructing the Congress from investigating him.

The impeachment process starts in the House of Representatives with a formal impeachment inquiry. If the House Judiciary Committee finds sufficient grounds, its members write and pass articles of impeachment, which then go to the full House for a vote.

A simple majority in the House is all that’s needed to formally impeach a president. But that doesn’t mean the president is of a job. The final stage is the Senate impeachment trial. Only if two-thirds of the Senate find the president guilty of the crimes laid out in the articles of impeachment is the President from office.

Although the United States Congress has impeached and removed eight federal officials no president has ever been found guilty during a Senate impeachment trial.

Below is the History of Presidential Impeachments in the Unites States according to History channel and writer David Roos

Andrew Johnson 1868

Believing the law to be unconstitutional, Johnson fired his Secretary of War, an ally of the Radical Republicans in Congress. Johnson’s political enemies responded by drafting and passing 11 articles of impeachment in the House.

Andrew Johnson came awfully close, though, he barely escaped a guilty verdict by one vote

Richard Nixon: 1974

Richard Nixon was never impeached. He resigned before the House of Representatives had a chance to impeach him. If he hadn’t quit, Nixon would likely have been the first president ever impeached and removed from office, given the crimes he committed to cover up his involvement in the Watergate break-ins.

On July 27, 1974, after seven months of deliberations, the House Judiciary Committee approved the first of five proposed articles of impeachment against Nixon.

Bill Clinton: 1998

Clinton and his First Lady, Hillary were the subject of a Justice Department investigation into the Whitewater controversy, a botched business deal from their days in Arkansas. And in 1994, Clinton was sued for sexual harassment by Paula Jones, who claimed Clinton exposed himself to her in a hotel room in 1991.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr was appointed by the Justice Department to investigate the Whitewater affair, but he couldn’t find any impeachable evidence. Meanwhile, lawyers for Jones got a tip that Clinton had an affair with a 21-year-old White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, a claim that both Lewinsky and Clinton denied under oath

On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives voted along party lines to impeach Clinton on two separate counts: perjury and obstruction of justice. But in the ensuing five-week Senate trial, Clinton was acquitted on both counts.

A significant number of U.S. presidents have faced calls for impeachment, including five of the past six Republican presidents. But few of those accusations were taken seriously by Congress.

There were even rumblings about impeaching George Washington, by those who opposed his policies. Those calls, however, did not reach the point of becoming formal resolutions or charges.

John Tyler was the first president to face impeachment charges. Tyler was wildly unpopular with his own Whig party. A House representative from Virginia submitted a petition for Tyler’s impeachment, but it was never taken up by the House for a vote.

Between 1932 and 1933, a congressman introduced two impeachment resolutions against Herbert Hoover. Both were eventually tabled by large margins.

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the subjects of impeachment resolutions submitted by Henry B. Gonzales, a Democratic representative from Texas, but none of the resolutions were taken up for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Barack Obama was also accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” befitting impeachment. In 2012, Republican Representative Walter Jones submitted a House resolution charging the president with authorizing military action in Libya without the consent of Congress. The resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee where it was never brought up for a vote.

BY KATHLEEN FRANCISCA