Trump’s Impeachment

On January 13th Donald Trump was the second president in history to be impeached twice. Being impeached means there is a charge for misconduct against a holder of a public office. The House sent a sole article of impeachment, which passed on January 3 to the Senate on January 25. This calls for a Senate trial that won’t be held until February 9th because the senate majority leader, Charles E. Schumer, and minority leader, Mitch McConnell, decided to delay the proceedings by two weeks.  

Trump being impeached a few days before he left office wasn’t anyone’s original plan.  On January 6th Trump supporters attempted to stop the counting of the electoral college votes that would make Joe Biden president.  But Democrats and even some Republicans accused Trump of inciting the incident.  He was impeached by the Jouse on a single charge to this effect. The article the House sent over was short but made three main arguments: 

1. He claimed he won the election even though he didn’t.  “Shortly before the Joint Session comparably. There, he reiterated false claims that ‘we won this election, and we won it by a landslide.’ ”
2. He encouraged the riot. “He willfully made statements that encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — imminent lawless action at the Capitol. Incited by President Trump, a mob unlawfully breached the Capitol, injured law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress and the Vice President, interfered with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the election results, and engaged in violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts.”
3. He has been putting actions into his words to try and overturn his loss. The article mentions the recent phone call between Trump and Georgia’s secretary of state, trying to persuade him to “find” more votes for Trump to win Georgia instead of Biden. 

The Constitution says a president can be impeached by the House, tried by the Senate, then removed from office if convicted. In this specific case, it would keep Trump from ever holding office again. House Democrats felt that Trump’s actions before the attack on the Capitol constituted high crimes and misdemeanors.  222 members of the house voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment.  “The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and let the flame of this attack,”  said representative Liz Cheney said in a statement then added,  “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Even though Trump’s term ended January 20th when President Joe Biden was sworn in and it’s too late to kick him out of office, he can still be banned from ever running for and winning office again.  February 9th is when the trial will take place, which will allow enough time for Trump and his lawyers to mount a defense and time Biden has a whole group of cabinet nominees he hopes to get confirmed by the Senate.