How does a president get impeached, and why is it happening to Trump?
With the ongoing impeachment hearings, it’s easy to feel lost in the headlines, and with so much breaking news it can be hard to catch up. Why is Trump up for impeachment? How does a president get impeached? What’s all this talk about a phone call? And who is Viktor Shokin?
How does the impeachment process work?
Impeachment is the process by which the House and Senate put an elected official on trial to determine whether they have committed a crime that would justify being barred from office. There are three impeachable offences according to the United States Constitution: “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanours”. That third offence is intentionally vague, as it leaves open the possibility for prosecution of other unforeseen crimes against the country.
The process of impeachment starts when any member of the House issues a motion to impeach. Many of these motions don’t go anywhere—before they can be taken seriously, they must be approved by a majority of the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee is a group of 41 House representatives––24 from the majority party and 17 from the minority–who are responsible for considering legislation pertaining to the judicial system, crime, and civil liberties. If a majority of the House Judiciary Committee votes in favour of the motion to impeach, then an impeachment trial in the House follows.
The next step is for the House of Representatives to vote on each article of impeachment (each individual charge in the impeachment process). A simple majority is necessary to pass each one. Prior to this vote, the House can hold hearings to inform their votes. Witnesses are brought forward to be cross-examined by both parties, and this is what is currently happening in the televised impeachment hearings against Donald Trump. If, following the congressional inquiry, a majority of the House votes to impeach, the individual under investigation is then officially impeached, but not yet removed from office. This has only happened to two presidents in history: Andrew Johnson, who was impeached for illegally removing his Secretary of War from office after the civil war; and Bill Clinton, who was impeached for lying under oath about his past sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
If the vote passes in the House, the proceedings then move to the Senate, where a trial is conducted. This trial determines whether or not to convict the individual of the crimes put forward by the House. Here, a 67 percent majority is needed to convict. This has never happened (although Andrew Johnson was only one vote shy of conviction). This is usually because senators vote along party lines, which often bars the possibility of reaching the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
In Richard Nixon’s case, he resigned the presidency before being impeached. His knowing participation in the break-ins of the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate office was so troubling that even some Republican lawmakers supported impeachment. A bipartisan group of House Judiciary Committee representatives decided to support all the articles of impeachment, as members from both parties were deeply concerned about his involvement in this espionage. Once Nixon saw that his own party was backing the impeachment proceedings, he resigned before the house could impeach to avoid being the only president to be convicted in the Senate.
Why is Trump being investigated?
The history of Ukraine as a battleground between Western powers and Russia is long and complex. In recent years, the US has been financially backing Ukraine as it has been distancing itself from Russia. Earlier this year, Congress approved sending more than $391 million in military aid to Ukraine, but Trump told his chief of staff to withhold these finances as he wanted to talk with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, first. In this conversation, Trump asked President Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden (the son of Joe Biden) for a money laundering scandal in exchange for this foreign aid. This is where the story gets a little confusing.
While Joe Biden was the Vice President, Hunter took a job at a Ukrainian oil company called Burisma Holdings Ltd. At that time, the president of Burisma was being investigated by the UK government for money laundering. The UK asked Ukraine’s top Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, to pursue the case against the president of Burisma, but he refused to. Shokin had a pattern of failing to investigate corruption cases, and this refusal started a public and political uprising against him. Joe Biden was then tasked by the Obama administration with pressuring Ukraine into firing Shokin for his failure to investigate the president of Burisma. Biden succeeded in getting Ukraine to fire Shokin, ushering in a new Prosecutor General.
Now, in a phone call with President Zelensky, Trump insinuated that Joe Biden pushed to get Shokin fired in order to protect Hunter. This doesn’t make sense, as Shokin had refused to investigate the company that Hunter worked for, and so, by getting Shokin fired, Biden was aiding the UK in its investigations against Hunter’s company.
Trump was trying to get President Zelensky to make it look like Joe Biden acted in his own self-interest, not that of the United States, in firing Shokin. There is no evidence of Biden’s wrongdoing, but framing Biden as corrupt would have helped Trump in his re-election campaign. Trump’s threat to not release the US’s military aid unless President Zelensky helped him in his re-election campaign was seen by Democrats as both bribery and a high crime, prompting the impeachment attempt.
Trump is likely to be impeached in the House, as the Democrats hold the necessary majority there. However, it is unlikely that Trump will ultimately be convicted in the Senate, because Democrats do not hold the necessary two-thirds majority, and Senate Republicans have made it clear that they intend to vote along party lines.
Comments are closed.