Can an Impeached President Run Again for Second Term

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Only iii U.South. presidents have been formally impeached past Congress—Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Ane of those presidents, Donald Trump, was impeached twice during his single term. No U.S. president has ever been removed from part through impeachment.

In addition to Johnson, Clinton and Trump, only one other U.Southward. president has faced formal impeachment inquiries in the House of Representatives: Richard Nixon. Many other presidents have been threatened with impeachment past political foes without gaining any existent traction in Congress.

The framers of the Constitution intentionally fabricated it difficult for Congress to remove a sitting president. 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 manufactures of impeachment, which then become to the full House for a vote.

A simple majority in the Business firm is all that's needed to formally impeach a president. Just that doesn't hateful he or she is out of a job. The final stage is the Senate impeachment trial. Merely if two-thirds of the Senate notice the president guilty of the crimes laid out in the articles of impeachment is the POTUS removed from function.

Although Congress has impeached and removed eight federal officials—all federal judges—no president has ever been found guilty during a Senate impeachment trial. Andrew Johnson came awfully close, though; he barely escaped a guilty verdict past 1 vote.

If Convicted, Removal From Office, Possible Disqualification from Regime Service

If a president is acquitted by the Senate, the impeachment trial is over. But if he or she is found guilty, the Senate trial moves to the sentencing or "punishment" stage. The Constitution allows for two types of punishments for a president found guilty of an impeachable criminal offense: "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend farther than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and relish whatever Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States."

The starting time punishment, removal from part, is automatically enforced following a two-thirds guilty vote. But the second punishment, disqualification from holding any future regime position, requires a separate Senate vote. In this instance, merely a uncomplicated bulk is required to ban the impeached president from any hereafter government role for life. That second vote has never been held since no president has been found guilty in the Senate trial.

READ More than: What Happens After a President Is Impeached?

Andrew Johnson: Impeached in 1868

Johnson was elected every bit Abraham Lincoln's vice president in 1864. The toughest decision facing Lincoln's second term was how to reestablish ties with the Confederate states now that the Civil State of war was over. Lincoln's program for Reconstruction favored leniency while and so-chosen "Radical Republicans" in his party wanted to punish Southern politicians and extend full civil rights to freed slaves.

Lincoln was assassinated simply 42 days into his 2nd term, leaving Johnson in accuse of Reconstruction. He immediately clashed with the Radical Republicans in Congress, calling for pardons for Confederate leaders and vetoing political rights for freedmen. In 1867, Congress retaliated by passing the Tenure of Office Human activity, which barred the president from replacing members of his cabinet without Senate approval.

Believing the law to be unconstitutional, Johnson went alee and fired his Secretarial assistant of War, an ally of the Radical Republicans in Congress. Johnson'due south political enemies responded by drafting and passing 11 manufactures of impeachment in the House.

"Sir, the bloody and untilled fields of the 10 unreconstructed States, the unsheeted ghosts of the two thou murdered negroes in Texas, cry [...] for the punishment of Andrew Johnson," wrote the abolitionist Republican Representative William D. Kelley from Pennsylvania.

Johnson was impeached in the House of Representatives by 126 votes to 47, merely narrowly avoided a 2-thirds guilty verdict in the Senate past a unmarried vote. After his acquittal, he served out the residual of his term and became the first (and only) former U.Due south. president to be elected to the Senate.

READ MORE: 150 Years Agone, a President Could Be Impeached for Firing a Cabinet Member

Beak Clinton: Impeached in 1998

Clinton was plagued by legal troubles and scandals from the moment he entered the White House. In 1993, Clinton and his First Lady, Hillary, were the subject of a Justice Department investigation into the so-chosen Whitewater controversy, a botched business concern bargain 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.

Interestingly, it was a combination of both legal cases that would ultimately pb to Clinton'south impeachment. Independent counsel Kenneth Starr was appointed by the Justice Department to investigate the Whitewater affair, just he couldn't find any impeachable testify. Meanwhile, lawyers for Jones got a tip that Clinton had an affair with a 21-year-onetime White Firm intern named Monica Lewinsky, a claim that both Lewinsky and Clinton denied nether oath.

Starr switched the focus of his investigation when he received twenty hours of taped phone conversations between Lewinsky and Linda Tripp, a erstwhile White Business firm colleague, in which Lewinsky alludes to the affair. Starr then got the FBI to fit Tripp with a wire to run into with Lewinsky at a Ritz-Carlton hotel exterior Washington, DC, when Lewinsky over again admitted to a sexual relationship with the president.

When the story went public, Clinton was forced to address the accusations on national television receiver.

"I want you to mind to me," Clinton famously said. "I did non have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never."

Starr'due south investigative squad ended upwardly producing a long and pulp written report detailing Clinton's sexual dalliances with Lewinsky and providing evidence that Clinton lied nether oath (perjury) in an endeavour to obstruct the Starr investigation.

On December xix, 1998, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on 2 separate counts: perjury and obstruction of justice. But in the ensuing five-week Senate trial, Clinton was acquitted on both counts.

Despite a very public and embarrassing scandal, and being but the 2nd president in history to be impeached, Clinton's chore approval rating peaked at 73 percent in 1999.

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READ MORE: Why Clinton Survived Impeachment While Nixon Resigned Subsequently Watergate

Donald Trump: Impeached in 2022 and 2021

On October 9, 2022 in Washington, D.C., President Trump answers questions on a pending impeachment inquiry. — On October nine, 2022 in Washington, D.C., President Trump answers questions on a pending impeachment research.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

On September 24, 2019, Firm Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump regarding his alleged efforts to pressure level the President of Ukraine to investigate possible wrongdoings past his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

The decision to authorize the impeachment inquiry came after a leaked whistleblower complaint detailed a July phone conversation between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump allegedly tied Ukrainian armed services aid to personal political favors. The White House afterwards released a reconstructed transcript of the telephone call, which many Democrats argued demonstrated that Trump had violated the Constitution.

On Dec 18, 2019, President Trump became the 3rd U.S. president in history to be impeached equally the Firm of Representatives voted well-nigh along party lines to impeach him over abuse of ability and obstruction of Congress. No Republicans voted in favor of either commodity of impeachment, while three Democrats voted against one or both. On February five, 2020, the Senate voted largely along party lines to acquit Trump on both charges.

On January 11, 2021, House Democrats introduced a 2nd commodity of impeachment that accused the president of "incitement of insurrection." The article cited telephone calls, speeches and tweets past President Trump that allegedly incited a violent crowd that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump again on January 13, 2021, making him the just president in history to be impeached twice. Dissimilar Trump'due south first impeachment, 10 Republicans joined Firm Democrats who unanimously voted in favor of impeachment. One hundred and 90-seven Republicans voted against the 2d impeachment. The Senate trial took identify after President Trump left office. He was found not guilty, though seven Republican senators joined Democrats in voting to convict, making it the about bi-partisan Senate impeachment vote in history.

Richard Nixon: Resigned in 1974

People read about President Nixon's resignation outside the gate of the White House in August, 1974. — *People read about President Nixon's resignation exterior the gate of the White Business firm in August, 1974.*

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Despite being complicit in one of the greatest political scandals in U.S. presidential history, Richard Nixon was never impeached. He resigned before the Firm of Representatives had a take a chance to impeach him. If he hadn't quit, Nixon would likely accept been the starting time president ever impeached and removed from function, given the crimes he committed to comprehend up his involvement in the Watergate break-ins.

On July 27, 1974, after seven months of deliberations, the House Judiciary Committee approved the showtime of five proposed articles of impeachment against Nixon, charging the president with obstruction of justice in an attempt to shield himself from the ongoing Watergate investigation. Only a handful of Republicans in the judiciary commission voted to corroborate the articles of impeachment, and it was unclear at the time if there would exist enough votes in the full House to formally impeach the president.

But everything changed on August 5, 1974, when the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release unedited tapes of his Oval Office conversations with White Business firm staffers during the Watergate investigation. The so-called "smoking gun" tapes included Nixon proposing the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI investigation, and paying hush money to the bedevilled Watergate burglars. The transcript included the following:

NIXON: How much coin do you need?

JOHN West. DEAN: I would say these people are going to price, uh, a million dollars over the adjacent, uh, 2 years. (Break)

NIXON: Nosotros could get that.

In one case the tapes were made public, Nixon got word from Republican congressional leadership that all but 15 Senators would likely vote against him in an impeachment trial, more than enough to remove him from role. To salvage himself the indignity of becoming the beginning sitting president fired by Congress, Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974.

Nixon was pardoned of criminal charges by Gerald Ford, but many of his Watergate conspirators weren't so lucky. Most of his White House legal counsel, including John Dean, went to jail for their interest in Watergate.

READ More: The Watergate Scandal

Other Presidents Threatened with Impeachment

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

At that place were even rumblings about impeaching the nation's beginning president, George Washington, by those who opposed his policies. Those calls, nonetheless, did not reach the point of becoming formal resolutions or charges.

John Tyler was the beginning president to face impeachment charges. Nicknamed "His Accidency" for assuming the presidency subsequently William Henry Harrison died later just xxx days in function, Tyler was wildly unpopular with his own Whig party. A House representative from Virginia submitted a petition for Tyler's impeachment, simply 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.

More recently, both Ronald Reagan and George H.West. Bush were the subject of impeachment resolutions submitted past Henry B. Gonzales, a Democratic representative from Texas, but none of the resolutions were taken up for a vote in the Firm Judiciary Committee.

George W. Bush faced a slightly more serious impeachment threat when Autonomous Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced a House resolution charging Bush-league with a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors, including state of war crimes. The House voted 251 to 166 to refer the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, but House Speaker Pelosi said any talk of impeachment was "off the table."

Barack Obama was besides defendant of "high crimes and misdemeanors" befitting impeachment. In 2012, Republican Representative Walter Jones submitted a Firm resolution charging the president with authorizing military action in Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya without the consent of Congress. The resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee where information technology was never brought upwardly for a vote.

Sentinel: The Presidents Collection on HISTORY Vault

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