Can the President Run if He Is Impeached

It's happening again.

Last month, in the final week of then-President Donald Trump's 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'southward second impeachment trial begins Tuesday, even though he is no longer in role.

Then why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? One answer is that removal is not the only sanction available if Trump is convicted: The Constitution also permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from property "whatsoever function 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 again in four years, he could exist the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Party primary. A Dec Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 percent approving rating among Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation equally a whole. Another December poll by Quinnipiac University found that 77 percentage of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden because of widespread voter fraud — a lie that Trump repeated even every bit his supporters wreaked havoc in the Capitol in Jan.

Disqualifying Trump from holding office, in other words, wouldn't but eliminate the risk that America's most prominent adversary of commonwealth would occupy the White House again. Information technology would also make manner for other ambitious Republicans who hope to get president someday.

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 2022 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2022 election, simply twenty officials (and only three presidents) have been impeached by the House in all of American history. And, of these xx impeached individuals, only 11 were either convicted by the Senate or resigned their office afterwards they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the Firm'due south 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 elementary majority vote.

After such a vote, the thing moves to the Senate, which volition 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 bulk vote in the Senate.

If the impeached official is convicted, the Senate and then must determine 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 hold and bask whatever office of honor, trust or profit under the United States." So the Senate effectively must make up one's mind whether merely 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 even so bring criminal charges confronting that official in federal court.

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

The Constitution is silent on whether, after an official has already been impeached and removed from role, imposing the additional sanction of disqualification requires a supermajority vote. In the past, however, the Senate determined that a uncomplicated majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Judge Archibald was butterfingers by a vote of 39-35 after he was removed from function.

To exist clear, such a simple majority vote may only take place after the Senate has already voted to convict an impeached official. Two-thirds of the Senate must kickoff agree to remove someone from office earlier that official tin can be disqualified — a uncomplicated majority cannot, acting on its own, disqualify an official from belongings hereafter office.

Even if Trump is convicted past the Senate — an unlikely issue given that the Senate is still controlled past Republicans — impeachment could simply cut Trump's time in part brusque by a few days.

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The Supreme Court has non ruled on whether uncomplicated majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public office after they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both butterfingers in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a example before the Courtroom that could accept immune the justices to dominion on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

Nonetheless, there is a strong ramble argument that the Senate should exist allowed to disqualify an individual past a uncomplicated bulk vote, later that private has already been convicted by a two-thirds majority.

In criminal trials, defendants typically enjoy far fewer procedural protections during the sentencing phase of their trial than they practice in the stage that determines their guilt or innocence. In trials not involving a possible death sentence, a defendant must be convicted by a jury, but the sentence can exist handed down by a single judge.

A similar logic could exist applied to impeachment trials. Earlier a public official is bedevilled past the Senate, they enjoy heightened procedural protections and must exist plant guilty by a supermajority vote. After they are bedevilled, yet, they are stripped of those protections and their sentence may be determined by a simple majority of the Senate.

In whatever event, overcoming the hurdle of convicting Trump will be difficult. If all fifty Senate Democrats hold together, they even so demand to convince at to the lowest degree 17 Republicans to convict Trump. And the overwhelming bulk of Republicans already voted to declare Trump's second impeachment trial unconstitutional — so that'due south non 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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