Impeachment doesn’t remove a president from office; conviction on impeachment charges does. Just to be clear about the terminology:
- Impeachment is the sole authority of the House of Representatives and requires a simple majority vote. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached by the House.
- The Senate then holds an impeachment trial and essentially acts as the jury, voting on whether or not to convict the president and remove him from office; it takes a two-thirds majority (67 of 100 votes) to do so. Neither Johnson nor Clinton was convicted by the Senate, although it came down to one vote in Johnson’s case. The Senate can also vote to bar an impeached president from holding office again.
Although no president has been removed from office, Nixon resigned under the threat of removal, and he
probably would have been removed in the absence of his resignation.Remember the
“smoking gun” tape on August 5, which proved that Nixon had sought to cover up the Watergate break-in. Facing a further collapse in his support, Nixon resigned four days later.
Even so, that’s only 1 of 44 previous presidencies — and 1 of 57 previous presidential terms — to end in the president’s termination. Therefore, you might think the chance of Trump being removed from office is very low........
So, thinking it may happen might help you sleep better at night, but realistically believing it's actually going to happen is just a "pipe" dream!
