Donald Trump has been accused of raping a 13-year-old child, sexually assaulting at least five women and discriminating against black families.
Trump's businesses
The real estate mogul has filed for bankruptcy for his businesses four times in 1991, 1992, 2004, and 2009.
Trump still hasn’t released his tax returns too after claiming to have been ‘smart’ in avoiding paying his taxes plus there are claims he bought a 6ft portrait of himself with charity money, and his business investments with Russia are still unclear.
While nothing has been officially proven, it does raise the question as to whether it is possible to impeach Donald Trump if any proof ever emerges of any wrongdoing. Here’s everything you need to know.
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How to impeach a president
To impeach a president, votes in both the House of Representatives and the Senate must be cast.
First the House will decide whether there are grounds to impeach a president (an indictment as such), then if the House believes there are, the Senate will hold a formal impeachment trial with the president. Senators will be sworn in as jurors and rules for the proceedings are established.
There are several grounds for a president to be impeached, including: ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours‘. Offences do not have to violate criminal law to be impeachable.
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Importantly, if a president is impeached it does NOT necessarily mean their removal from office.
Impeachment is a legal statement of charges in the House and, according to the Constitutional Rights Foundation, is political rather than criminal in nature. Only the Senate can legislate to remove a president from office if that is the result of the impeachment trial. The Senate can also legislate to bar the person from ever holding public office in the future too.
If criminal charges are to be brought, this must be separate to the impeachment trial in the Senate.
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How many presidents have been impeached?
Only two presidents in the history of the United States have ever been impeached: Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson.
Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998, charged with lying under oath to a federal grand jury, witness-tampering, abuse of power and obstructing justice over his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky.
Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached in 1868 after he broke the Tenure of Office Act, put in place to ensure that the president didn’t dismiss important government officials without the permission of the Senate, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
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The House formally impeached Johnson for bringing into ‘disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach the Congress of the United States.’ He escaped being removed from office by the Senate by just one vote.
Two other presidents were close to being impeached:John Tyler and Richard Nixon. Nixon resigned before his impeachment over the Watergate Scandal in 1974 could be completed in the House. He was later given a full and unconditional pardoned by Gerald Ford during his inauguration.
Tyler meanwhile was unsuccessfully impeached by the Whigs after clashing with them in the 1840s.
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Have either of those actually been convicted in the Senate?
Instead both were acquitted and Clinton was allowed to serve out the remainder of his term in office.
Whether this could change in the future remains to be seen.
Sorce: Metro news uk
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