New York: W. The Federalist Papers. New York: Penguin Books, Melton, Buckner F. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, Rehnquist, William H. New York: Harper Perennial, House of Representatives, 93rd Cong. Storing, Herbert J. The Complete Anti-Federalist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Sullivan, John. Washington, D. Thomas, David Y. Featured Search Historical Highlights of the House. Learn about Foreign Leader Addresses. In addition, Judge Walter L. Nixon Jr.
He was subsequently impeached in for his behavior, including making false statements to the grand jury about whether he had discussed a criminal case with the prosecutor and attempted to influence the case, as well as for concealing such matters from federal investigators. Finally, in , Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. Most impeachments have concerned behavior occurring while an individual is in a federal office. However, some have addressed, at least in part, conduct before individuals assumed their positions.
For example, in , a resolution impeaching Judge Robert W. Archbald and setting forth 13 articles of impeachment was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee and agreed to by the House. Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit and a designated judge of the U.
Commerce Court. The articles of impeachment brought against him alleged misconduct in those positions as well as in his previous position as U. District Judge. While Judge Archbald was impeached and convicted in part for behavior occurring before he assumed his then-current position, the underlying behavior occurred while he held a prior federal office. Judge G. Thomas Porteous, in contrast, is the first individual to be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate based in part upon conduct occurring before he began his tenure in federal office.
Articles I and II each alleged misconduct beginning while he was a state court judge as well as misconduct while he was a federal judge. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. On December 8, , he was convicted on all four articles, removed from office, and disqualified from holding future federal offices. On the other hand, it does not appear that any President, Vice President, or other civil officer of the United States has been impeached by the House solely on the basis of conduct occurring before he began his tenure in the office held at the time of the impeachment investigation, although the House has, on occasion, investigated such allegations.
It appears that federal officials who have resigned have nonetheless been thought to be susceptible to impeachment and a ban on holding future office. Belknap resigned two hours before the House impeached him, but the Senate nevertheless conducted a trial in which Belknap was acquitted.
That said, the resignation of an official under investigation for impeachment often ends impeachment proceedings. For example, no impeachment vote was taken following President Richard Nixon's resignation after the House Judiciary Committee decided to report articles of impeachment to the House.
The Constitution sets forth the general principles which control the procedural aspects of impeachment, vesting the power to impeach in the House of Representatives, while imbuing the Senate with the power to try impeachments.
Both the Senate and the House have designed procedures to implement these general principles in dealing with a wide range of impeachment issues. This section provides a brief overview of the impeachment process, reflecting the roles of both the House and the Senate during the course of an impeachment inquiry and trial.
Impeachment proceedings may be commenced in the House of Representatives by a Member declaring a charge of impeachment on his or her own initiative, by a Member presenting a memorial listing charges under oath, or by a Member depositing a resolution in the hopper, which is then referred to the appropriate committee.
Resolutions regarding impeachment may be of two types. A resolution impeaching a particular individual, who is within the category of impeachable officers under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, is usually referred directly to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Nixon, a resolution reported out of the House Judiciary Committee, H. The resolution authorized the House Judiciary Committee to investigate fully whether sufficient grounds existed for the House to impeach President Nixon, specified powers which the Committee could exercise in conducting this investigation, and addressed funding for that purpose.
The resolution was agreed to by the House. While the House Judiciary Committee usually conducts impeachment investigations, such matters have occasionally been referred to other committees, such as the House Committee on Reconstruction in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, or to a special or select committee.
In all prior impeachment proceedings, the House has examined the charges prior to entertaining any vote. However, it is possible that this investigation could be carried out by a select or special committee.
For example, in , the House passed a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee or a designated subcommittee or task force to investigate whether Judge Porteous should be impeached. The focus of the impeachment inquiry is to determine whether the person involved has engaged in treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If a subcommittee or task force is charged with investigating a possible impeachment, the Members can vote to recommend articles of impeachment to the full committee.
At the conclusion of debate, the House may consider the resolution as a whole, or may vote on each article separately. The House will also adopt a resolution in order to notify the Senate of its action. The House has traditionally filed a replication to the respondent's answer, and the pleadings may continue with a rejoinder, surrejoinder, and similiter.
When pleadings have concluded, the Senate will set a date for trial. In impeachment trials, the full Senate may receive evidence and take testimony, or may order the Presiding Officer to appoint a committee of Senators to serve this purpose. The Senate will determine questions of competency, relevancy, and materiality. At the beginning of the trial, House managers and counsel for the respondent present opening arguments outlining the charges to be established and controverted.
The Senate has not adopted standard rules of evidence to be used during an impeachment trial. The Presiding Officer possesses authority to rule on all evidentiary questions. When the presentation of evidence and argument by the managers and counsel for the respondent has concluded, the Senate as a whole meets in closed session to deliberate. No formal vote is required for removal, as it is a necessary effect of the conviction. The Senate may subsequently vote on whether the impeached official shall be disqualified from again holding an office of public trust under the United States.
Impeachment proceedings have been challenged in federal court on a number of occasions. Perhaps most significantly, the Supreme Court has ruled that a challenge to the Senate's use of a trial committee to take evidence posed a nonjusticiable political question. United States , Judge Walter L. Nixon had been convicted in a criminal trial on two counts of making false statements before a grand jury and was sent to prison.
The House of Representatives adopted articles of impeachment against the judge and presented the Senate with the articles. After the committee completed its proceedings, it presented the full Senate with a transcript and report. Both sides then presented briefs to the full Senate and delivered arguments, and the Senate then voted to convict and remove him from office.
The Supreme Court noted that the Constitution grants "the sole Power" to try impeachments "in the Senate and nowhere else"; and the word "try" "lacks sufficient precision to afford any judicially manageable standard of review of the Senate's actions. The Court was careful to distinguish the situation from Powell v. McC ormack , a case also involving congressional procedure where the Court declined to apply the political question doctrine.
The Court therefore concluded in Powell that whether the three requirements in the Constitution were satisfied was textually committed to the House, "but the decision as to what these qualifications consisted of was not.
In addition, several other aspects of the impeachment process have been challenged. Thomas Porteous brought a suit seeking to bar counsel for the Impeachment Task Force of the House Judiciary Committee from using sworn testimony the judge had provided pursuant to a grant of immunity. During that investigation, Judge Porteous testified under oath to the Special Investigatory Committee under an order granting him immunity from that information being used against him in a criminal case.
District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Porteous argued that the use of his immunized testimony during an impeachment proceeding violated his Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to serve as a witness against himself.
Hastings sought to prevent the House Judiciary Committee from obtaining the records of a grand jury inquiry during the Committee's impeachment investigation.
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, however, rejected this "absolutist" concept of the separation of powers and held that "a merely generalized assertion of secrecy in grand jury materials must yield to a demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending impeachment investigation.
The U. District Court for the District of Columbia initially threw out Judge Hastings' Senate impeachment conviction, because the Senate had tried his impeachment before a committee rather than the full Senate. See Brown, W. Due to a variety of factors, the impeachment process has been initiated in the House of Representatives a number of times without articles of impeachment being voted against the subjects of those inquiries.
See Cass R. Sunstein, Impeaching the President , U. Thomas Porteous, Jr. Nixon, Jr. John Pickering ; West H. Humphreys ; Robert W. Archbald ; Halsted Ritter ; Harry E. Claiborne ; Alcee Hastings ; Walter L. Thomas Porteous See Porteous Impeachment , supra note 5, at 1 n. Under Senate rules, the Presiding Officer administers the oath to all Senators present before proceeding to consideration of any articles of impeachment.
There is some debate about who would preside if the Vice President were impeached. Compare Joel K. Louis U. See, e. Archbald, 39 yeas, 35 nays. Federal judges—appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and enjoying tenure and salary protection—have consistently been considered civil officers; in fact, the vast majority of impeached individuals have been federal judges.
The Constitution, in the Appointments Clause , provides the president with the power to appoint officers of the United States which are subject to Senate confirmation and distinguishes these officials from those inferior officers that the Congress may, by law, grant the president the sole power to appoint i.
The U. Supreme Court further recognized the distinction in the two categories under the appointments clause, categorizing these as principal officers and inferior officers respectively, in Edmond v. United States. In Buckley v. Valeo , the court defined an officer as "any appointee exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States. Therefore, as Cole and Garvey note, [1]. Any official exercising 'significant authority' including both principal and inferior officers, would therefore qualify as a 'civil Officer' subject to impeachment.
This view would permit Congress to impeach and remove any executive branch 'officer,' including many deputy political appointees and certain administrative judges. William Blount of Tennessee was the first individual ever impeached by the United States House of Representatives and, to this day, is the only member of Congress ever to have been impeached.
The House impeached Blount on July 7, , for allegedly conspiring to incite Native Americans and frontiersmen to attack the Spanish lands of Florida and Louisiana in order to give them to England. After the impeachment vote in the House, but before Blount's impeachment trial in the Senate, the Senate voted to expel Blount under provisions of Article I, Section 5 of the United States Constitution. Due to a lack of jurisdiction in Tennessee , where Blount fled after his conviction, the Senate could not extradite Blount for his impeachment trial.
Two years later, in , the Senate determined that Blount was not a civil officer under the definition of the Constitution and, therefore, could not be impeached. The Senate dismissed the charges against Blount for lack of jurisdiction. Since , the House has not impeached another member of Congress.
On February 24, , President Andrew Johnson became the first sitting president to be impeached. Following Congress' passage of the Tenure of Office Act, forbidding the president from removing federal officials without the approval of Congress, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and replaced him with Ulysses S.
Johnson hoped to challenge the constitutionality of the Act. The House charged him with violating the Act and passed an impeachment resolution Johnson was acquitted by the Senate on May 16, , by a vote of , one vote short of two-thirds. Seven Republican senators broke ranks with the party to prevent Johnson's conviction. President William Jefferson Clinton , the second president to be impeached, was charged by the U. House on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, The first article of impeachment for perjury passed the House by a vote of , while the second vote on obstruction of justice passed by House Republicans accused Clinton of lying and having others lie, hiding the affair.
Two other charges, perjury in regards to an affair with Paula Jones and abuse of power, were rejected by the House. The perjury charge failed by a vote of while the obstruction of justice charge failed on a tied vote of Donald Trump was the third president to be impeached.
He was impeached first in and a second time in On December 18, , the U. House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The first article passed by a vote of and the second On February 5, , the Senate acquitted him of abuse of power by a vote and of obstruction of Congress by a vote.
On January 13, , the House voted to impeach Trump for incitement of insurrection related to the January 6 Capitol breach during electoral vote counting. To ensure that the powers are maintained for each branch of government, and to prevent anyone person or entity in the government from becoming too powerful, the U.
Constitution also specifies a series of checks and balances where each branch of government can check or limit the other branches on important functions of government. Examples of checks and balances include the presidential veto, Senate confirmation of presidential appointments, and judicial review.
One important check specified in the U. Constitution is presidential impeachment. Presidents, and other members of the executive and judicial branches, can potentially be impeached and removed from office by Congress. This serves as the ultimate check against presidential authority. The Founders wanted to ensure that everyone would follow the rule of law and no one would be above the law.
It does specify that Congress will carry out the process.
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