Can President Run Again if Impeached by House

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Last month, in the final week of then-President Donald Trump'south presidency, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for a second time, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for inflaming a pro-Trump mob that attacked and briefly occupied the US Capitol on January six. Trump'due south second impeachment trial begins Tuesday, even though he is no longer in function.

Then why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? I answer is that removal is non the only sanction available if Trump is bedevilled: The Constitution besides permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from holding "any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States."

Speaker of the House 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 4 years, he could exist the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Political party primary. A December Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 percent approval rating among Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation as a whole. Another December poll by Quinnipiac University found that 77 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden considering of widespread voter fraud — a prevarication 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 risk that America'due south near prominent adversary of democracy would occupy the White House in one case again. It would also brand mode for other ambitious Republicans who hope to go president anytime.

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 late 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2020 ballot, only 20 officials (and merely three presidents) have been impeached by the House in all of American history. And, of these 20 impeached individuals, merely 11 were either convicted by the Senate or resigned their office after they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the Business firm's decision to charge a public official with "high crimes and misdemeanors," the phrase the Constitution uses to describe offenses warranting removal of a high official. The House may impeach such an official by a uncomplicated majority vote.

After such a vote, the matter moves to the Senate, which will conduct a trial and make up one's mind whether to convict 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 two-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 non extend further than to removal from function, and disqualification to concur and enjoy any part of honor, trust or turn a profit under the United States." So the Senate effectively must decide whether but removing the official from office is an appropriate sanction, or whether permanent disqualification is warranted.

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

In all of American history, only three individuals — old federal judges West Humphreys, Robert Archibald, and Thomas Porteous — have been permanently barred from holding future office.

The Constitution is silent on whether, later on an official has already been impeached and removed from function, imposing the boosted sanction of disqualification requires a supermajority vote. In the by, notwithstanding, the Senate determined that a simple majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Judge Archibald was disqualified by a vote of 39-35 after he was removed from function.

To be articulate, such a simple majority vote may but take identify after the Senate has already voted to captive an impeached official. 2-thirds of the Senate must outset agree to remove someone from office earlier that official can be disqualified — a simple majority cannot, acting on its own, disqualify an official from property future role.

Even if Trump is convicted by the Senate — an unlikely event given that the Senate is still controlled by Republicans — impeachment could simply cut Trump'south fourth dimension in office short past a few days.

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The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether uncomplicated majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public function later they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both disqualified in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a instance before the Court that could have allowed the justices to rule on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

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

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 non involving a possible death judgement, a defendant must be convicted by a jury, but the sentence can exist handed downward by a single judge.

A similar logic could be applied to impeachment trials. Before a public official is convicted by the Senate, they enjoy heightened procedural protections and must be found guilty by a supermajority vote. After they are convicted, still, they are stripped of those protections and their sentence may be determined by a simple majority of the Senate.

In whatever outcome, overcoming the hurdle of convicting Trump will be difficult. If all 50 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's 2d impeachment trial unconstitutional — and then that's not a great sign for anyone hoping that Trump might be convicted.

The question for Republican senators, however, 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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