French
DeutschSecond impeachment of Donald Trump
| Second impeachment of Donald Trump | |
|---|---|
 The House of Representatives votes to adopt the article of impeachment. | |
| Accused | Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States |
| Proponents | |
| Date | January 13 – February 13, 2021 (1 month) |
| Outcome | Acquitted by the U.S. Senate |
| Charges | |
| Cause | |
| Congressional votes | |
| Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives | |
| Accusation | Incitement of insurrection |
| Votes in favor | 232 |
| Votes against | 197 |
| Present | 0 |
| Not voting | 4 |
| Result | Approved |
| Voting in the U.S. Senate | |
| Accusation | Incitement of insurrection |
| Votes in favor | 57 "guilty" |
| Votes against | 43 "not guilty" |
| Result | Acquitted (67 "guilty" votes necessary for a conviction) |
| January 6 United States Capitol attack |
|---|
_(cropped_to_gallows).jpg) |
| Timeline • Planning |
| Background |
| Participants |
| Aftermath |
Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, was impeached for the second time on January 13, 2021, one week before his term expired. It was the fourth impeachment of a U.S. president, and the second for Trump after his first impeachment in December 2019.[1][2]
The House of Representatives of the 117th U.S. Congress adopted one article of impeachment against Trump of "incitement of insurrection", stating that he had incited the January 6 attack of the U.S. Capitol. The House impeachment managers formally triggered the start of the impeachment trial on January 25 by delivering to the Senate the charge against Trump.[3] The trial in the Senate was scheduled to start on February 9.[4] The trial was the first of its kind for a departed U.S. president, with Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump having been the subjects of the prior impeachment trials. Many Republican senators challenged the validity of holding an impeachment trial for a president no longer in office while proponents cited the Senate's 1876 trial of William W. Belknap, the Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant, who was impeached but not convicted after resigning from office immediately prior to a House vote on his impeachment.[5] At the trial, 57 senators voted "guilty", which was less than the two-thirds majority needed (67) to convict Trump, and 43 senators voted "not guilty", resulting in Trump being acquitted of the charges on February 13, 2021.[6]
In August 2023, Trump was twice indicted for the conduct at issue in his impeachment, once in Georgia and once federally.
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| Business and personal 45th President of the United States Tenure Impeachments Prosecutions Interactions involving Russia
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Background
Attempts to overturn the 2020 election
For weeks prior to the impeachment, President Trump made numerous unsuccessful attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.
January 6 U.S. Capitol attack
Trump told his supporters to come to Washington D.C. on January 6, the day Congress was counting the electoral votes, to the "March to Save America" rally at The Ellipse.[7] During the rally, Trump as well as other speakers falsely claimed that the election was stolen, used the word "fight", made an analogy to boxing,[8] and suggested that his supporters had the power to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.[9]
When the United States Congress convened to certify the electoral votes of the presidential election, supporters of Trump crossed the Mall and stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to prevent the tabulation of votes and protest against Biden's win. Trump supporters illegally entered the Capitol and gathered on its eastern and western sides, including on the inaugural platform constructed for Biden's inauguration.[10] Five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died from the riots, while several improvised explosive devices were found on and near the Capitol grounds.[11][12] Another Capitol police officer on duty during the riots died by suicide days later.[13] During the riots, Trump was "initially pleased" by the attack on the Capitol and took no action.[14][15] In a speech hours into the event, Trump told the rioters "We love you. You're very special," restated his false claims of electoral fraud, and then asked them to go home.[16] Hours later, Congress reconvened and ultimately certified the electoral votes in the early morning hours of January 7. Trump then released a statement asserting that there would be an "orderly transition" of power on Inauguration Day, even while continuing to claim falsely that the election was stolen from him and also stating that he would not attend Biden's inauguration.[17]
Considered scenarios
Four scenarios for the removal of Trump from office had been posited by members of Congress, members of Trump's cabinet, political commentators, or legal scholars: resignation, the invocation of the 14th Amendment, invocation of the 25th Amendment, or impeachment and conviction.
Resignation
The President of the United States can resign from office, in which case the Vice President will automatically become president, instead of merely assuming the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president. While Article II of the Constitution states that the "Powers and Duties" of the president devolve to the vice president in the event of the president's death, resignation, incapacity, or removal, John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States, interpreted that provision as allowing the Vice President to ascend to the presidency in such cases, without any qualifications. This practice was codified in 1967, with the passage of the 25th Amendment.
If Trump had resigned, Vice President Mike Pence would have become the 46th president of the United States; Pence would have been the shortest-serving president ever, being in office for a matter of days before handing power to Joe Biden as the 47th president on January 20. This would have surpassed the record of William Henry Harrison, who died 31 days into his term. It would have been the second time in history that a president had been forced to resign; the first was the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon when it appeared inevitable that he would be impeached and removed from office for his role in the Watergate scandal.
Due to intense pressure on his administration, the threat of removal, and numerous resignations, Trump committed to an orderly transition of power in a televised speech on January 7.[18] In the White House on January 8, Trump mentioned that he was not considering resignation.[19] On January 9, The New York Times reported that Trump told White House aides that he regretted his statement committing to an orderly transition of power and that there was no chance he would resign from office.[20]
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. Section 3 states that a person who participated in insurrection after having taken an oath to support the Constitution is disqualified from holding future office unless permitted by Congress.
If Trump had been removed from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, Pence would have become the 46th president of the United States, and he would still have been the shortest-serving president ever before handing power to Biden as the 47th president on January 20. It would also have been the first time that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment had been invoked since 1919 when it stopped Victor L. Berger, convicted of violating the Espionage Act for his anti-militarist views, from taking his seat in the House of Representatives.[21] It would also have been the first time that it had been invoked on a sitting president and its being invoked had been seen as especially unlikely.[22]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was one of the House Democrats who supported invoking the 14th Amendment against Trump. In a letter, Pelosi thanked her colleagues for their contributions to discussions on the 14th Amendment.[23] If successful, the former president would be ineligible for appointment to any federal office without a Senate supermajority vote in favor.
25th Amendment
The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution deals with presidential succession and disability. Though the amendment thus far has been used in medical situations, Section 4 provides that the vice president, together with a majority of Cabinet secretaries, may declare the president unable to carry out his duties, after which the vice president immediately assumes the duties of the president.
If Section 4 of the 25th Amendment action had been carried out, it would have made Pence the acting president, assuming the "powers and duties of the office" of the president. Trump would have remained president for the rest of his term, albeit stripped of all authority. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment had not been invoked before.[24][25] The 25th Amendment, however, was initially created for the case where the President was incapacitated.
Pence, who would have been required to initiate removal, stated that he would not invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump.[26]
Impeachment and conviction
Impeachment begins in the House of Representatives, where articles of impeachment are drawn up. These articles are then voted on by House members. Each article is voted on separately and requires a simple majority to pass. Once an article has been passed in the House, the president has been impeached. The articles are then sent to the Senate for adjudication with an impeachment trial. After views have been laid out in the trial, the Senate moves to vote on conviction. Each article requires a two-thirds majority of Senators present to pass. If an article passes in the Senate, the president has been convicted and is removed from office. Once the president is convicted, a further vote may then be held which determines whether the (now-former) president is barred from holding future office; this vote passes with a simple majority in the Senate.[27][28]
Because the Senate was not scheduled to reconvene until January 19, 2021,[29] members of Congress discussed holding the trial after Trump had left office. A former president had never been tried by the Senate; however, Secretary of War William W. Belknap had been impeached by the House and tried by the Senate after he had resigned.[5]
Invoking the 25th Amendment
On the evening of January 6, CBS News reported that Cabinet members were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment.[30] The ten Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by U.S. Representative David Cicilline, sent a letter to Pence to "emphatically urge" him to invoke the 25th Amendment and declare Trump "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office", claiming that he incited and condoned the riots.[31][32] For invocation, Pence and at least eight Cabinet members, forming a simple majority, would have to consent. Additionally, if challenged by Trump, the second invocation would maintain Pence as acting president, subject to a vote of approval in both houses of Congress, with a two-thirds supermajority necessary in each chamber to sustain. However, Congress would not have needed to act before January 20 for Pence to remain acting president until Biden was inaugurated, per the timeline described in Section 4.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D–MA) accused Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in a tweet of quitting rather than supporting efforts to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump.[33] A Trump administration official disputed Warren's claim.[33] House majority whip Jim Clyburn on Friday accused DeVos and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao of "running away from their responsibility" by resigning from President Trump's Cabinet before invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.[34] News agencies reported that DeVos was in discussions to invoke the 25th Amendment prior to her resignation.[33] By late January 9, it was reported that Pence had not ruled out invoking the 25th Amendment and was actively considering it.[35]
The House Rules Committee met on January 12, 2021, to vote on a non-binding resolution calling on Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.[36] Pence later stated his position of not invoking the 25th Amendment, according to a letter sent to Pelosi late on January 12. In it, he stated that the 25th Amendment was intended for presidential incapacity or disability, and invoking Section 4 to punish and usurp President Trump in the middle of a presidential transition would undermine and set a terrible precedent for the stability of the executive branch and the United States federal government.[37]
On the same day, the House of Representatives voted to call for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. The resolution passed with 223 in favor, 205 against, and 5 (all Republicans)[a] not voting; Adam Kinzinger was the only Republican to join a unified Democratic Caucus.[38]
Raskin bill
The 25th Amendment allows Congress to establish a committee to determine when a president is unfit to serve (section 4 of the Amendment provides that the "declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" is made by "the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments [i.e., the Cabinet] or of such other body as Congress may by law provide").[39] However, such a committee has never been established. In May 2017, Representative Jamie Raskin (D–MD-8) introduced legislation to create a standing, independent, nonpartisan body, called the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity, to make such a determination. The bill had 20 cosponsors.[40] Raskin had previously introduced a legislative proposal under the same title with the same purpose back in 2017.
In October 2020, Raskin and Pelosi introduced a similar bill to create a Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office, to have 17 members – four physicians, four psychiatrists, four retired Democratic statespersons, and four retired Republican statespersons appointed by congressional leaders (the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader). The bill defines "retired statespersons" as former presidents, vice presidents, attorneys general, secretaries of state, defense secretaries, Treasury secretaries, and surgeons general. The committee chair would be appointed by the other members. The bill provides that no members of the commission could be a current elected official, federal employee, or active or reserve military personnel, a measure intended to avoid conflicts of interest and chain-of-command problems. A majority of the commission (nine members), plus the vice president, would need to support invoking the 25th Amendment. The bill had 38 cosponsors.[41] While the bill received renewed interest in the aftermath of the Capitol incident, as with any other bill it would require passage by both houses of Congress and consideration by the president for the commission to be formed and consider invocation of Section 4; thus it was ultimately irrelevant to the immediate situation.
Impeachment
Drafted articles of impeachment
Within hours of the Capitol attack, members of Congress began to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump as president. Several representatives began the process of independently drafting various articles of impeachment. Of these attempts, the first to become public were those of Representative Ilhan Omar (D–MN-5) who drafted and introduced articles of impeachment against Trump.[42][43][44][45]
Representative David Cicilline (D–RI-1) separately drafted an article of impeachment. The text was obtained by CNN on January 8.[46] On Twitter, Cicilline acknowledged the coauthorship of Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin,[47] and said that "more than 110" members had signed on to this article.[48] "Article I: Incitement of Insurrection" accuses Trump of having "willfully made statements that encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—imminent lawless action at the Capitol".[49] As a result of incitement by Trump, "a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol" and "engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts".[50] On January 10, it was announced that the bill had gathered 210 cosponsors in the House.[51]
Article of impeachment introduced
On January 11, 2021, U.S. Representatives David Cicilline, along with Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu, introduced an article of impeachment against Trump, charging Trump with "incitement of insurrection" in urging his supporters to march on the Capitol building. The article contended that Trump made several statements that "encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—lawless action" that interfered with Congress' constitutional duty to certify the election. It argued that by his actions, Trump "threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government", doing so in a way that rendered him "a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution" if he were allowed to complete his term.[36][52] By the time it was introduced, 218 of the 222 House Democrats had signed on as cosponsors, assuring its passage.[53] Trump was impeached in a vote on January 13, 2021; ten Republicans, including House Republican Conference chairwoman Liz Cheney, joined all of the Democrats in supporting the article.
On January 12, with the article's passage assured, Pelosi named Raskin, Lieu, Cicilline, Diana DeGette, Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Joe Neguse, Madeleine Dean, and Stacey Plaskett as managers to present the prosecution case in the Senate conviction trial, with Raskin as lead manager.[54] The managers were chosen for their expertise in constitutional law, civil rights, and criminal justice. Raskin is a former constitutional law professor at American University. Lieu is a former military prosecutor in the United States Air Force. Cicilline is a former public defender. Swalwell was a former prosecutor in California. DeGette is a former civil rights attorney. Castro, Neguse, Dean and Plaskett are all lawyers in private practice.[55]
The House impeachment managers formally triggered the start of the impeachment trial on January 25 by walking across the Capitol and delivered to the Senate the charge against Trump. The nine managers were led into the Senate chamber by the lead impeachment manager, who read the article of impeachment.[3] The trial in the Senate began as scheduled on February 9.[4]
House vote
| Party | Article I (incitement of insurrection) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | Present | Not voting | ||
| Democratic (222) | 222 | – | – | – | |
| Republican (211) | 197 | – | |||
| Total (433)[b] | 232 | 197 | – | 4 | |
| Result | Adopted[c] | ||||
Republican aye
Republican nay
Republican not voting
Vacant seat
Senate trial
The second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States (in office from 2017 to 2021), began on February 9, 2021, and concluded with his acquittal on February 13. Donald Trump had been impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021. The House adopted one article of impeachment against Trump: incitement of insurrection. He is the only U.S. president and only federal official to be impeached twice. He was impeached by the House seven days prior to the expiration of his term and the inauguration of Joe Biden. Because he left office before the trial, this was the first impeachment trial of a former president.[57] The article of impeachment addressed Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results (including his claims of election fraud and his efforts to pressure election officials in Georgia) and stated that Trump incited the attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C., while Congress was convened to count the electoral votes and certify the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.[58]
At the beginning of the trial, Senator Rand Paul forced a vote to dismiss the impeachment charge on the basis that it was unconstitutional to try a former president, arguing that impeachment only applies to current federal officers and that the punishment of removal from office was moot under the circumstances. Supporters of proceeding with the trial argued that the Constitution also permits disqualification from holding future office, which the House had requested in its article of impeachment. The motion was defeated in a 55–45 vote, with all Democrats, both independents, and five Republicans (Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania) voting against the motion.[59][60] This was the first time that a former president had been tried, and only the second time the Senate tried someone who had already left office, after Secretary of War William W. Belknap in 1876. Jamie Raskin was the lead impeachment manager and the primary author – along with Representative David Cicilline and Representative Ted Lieu – of the impeachment article, which charged Trump with inciting an insurrection by sparking the Capitol attack. Joaquin Castro, Eric Swalwell, Madeleine Dean, and Stacey Plaskett also assisted in delivering the oral arguments for conviction.
Trump's defense was led by Michael van der Veen, a personal injury lawyer from Philadelphia, along with David Schoen and Bruce Castor. Van der Veen's style and substance during the trial drew ridicule and criticism from many, with gasps and laughter in the Senate when he stated that he would seek to depose at least 100 people at his Philadelphia office, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.[61][62] Trump had originally hired Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier to represent him, but they quit along with three other lawyers after "the former president wanted the lawyers representing him to focus on his allegations of mass election fraud" and his false claim that "the election was stolen from him."[63]
At the conclusion of the trial, the Senate voted 57–43 to convict Trump of inciting insurrection, falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution, and Trump was therefore acquitted. Seven Republican senators joined all Democratic and independent senators in voting to convict Trump, the largest bipartisan vote for an impeachment conviction of a U.S. president or former U.S. president.[64][65] After the vote on the acquittal, Mitch McConnell said, "There's no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day."[66] but he voted against conviction due to his interpretation of the United States Constitution.[67]| Party | Article I (incitement of insurrection) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guilty | Not guilty | ||||
| Democratic (48) | 48 | – | |||
| Republican (50) | 7
| 43 | |||
| Independent (2) | 2
| – | |||
| Total (100) | 57 | 43 | |||
| Result | Not guilty[d] | ||||
Opinions
Support
In the aftermath of the attack, members of media and political organizations expressed support for Trump to be either impeached or removed through the methods outlined in the 25th Amendment. Any impeachment by the House of Representatives requires a trial and conviction in the Senate, with the concurrence of two-thirds of Senators present and voting needed to remove the President from office. During the impeachment and trial process, the President remains in office. On January 8, the extent of support among Senators for an impeachment process was unclear, particularly given the length of time necessary to organize a trial and the short duration remaining of Trump's presidency.[68] Poll aggregate website FiveThirtyEight said that roughly 85% of Democrats, 49% of Independents, and 16% of Republicans supported impeachment. The site also found roughly an 8% drop in Trump's approval ratings following the attack.[69][70]
Federal elected officials
At least 200[71][72] members of Congress called for Trump to be