Can an Impeached President Run Again for Second Term

It'due south happening again.

Last calendar month, in the last week of then-President Donald Trump'south presidency, the House voted 232-197 to impeach Trump for a 2nd time, charging him with "incitement of insurrection" for inflaming a pro-Trump mob that attacked and briefly occupied the The states Capitol on January vi. Trump'south second impeachment trial begins Tuesday, even though he is no longer in office.

So why would lawmakers bother with impeachment? I answer is that removal is not the only sanction bachelor if Trump is convicted: The Constitution also permits the Senate to permanently disqualify Trump from property "any office of accolade, trust or profit under the United States."

Speaker of the Business firm Nancy Pelosi has chosen for the removal of President Trump from office.

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If Trump were to seek the presidency again in iv years, he could be the prohibitive favorite in a Republican Party principal. A December Gallup poll shows that Trump has an 87 pct approval rating amongst Republicans, even though he is quite unpopular with the nation equally a whole. Another Dec poll past Quinnipiac University found that 77 pct of Republicans believe the lie that Trump lost to Biden considering of widespread voter fraud — a lie that Trump repeated even every bit his supporters wreaked havoc in the Capitol in January.

Disqualifying Trump from holding office, in other words, wouldn't just eliminate the risk that America's almost prominent antagonist of democracy would occupy the White House once again. It would also brand way for other ambitious Republicans who hope to go 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 tardily 2019 for pressuring Ukraine to intervene in the 2020 election, simply 20 officials (and only three presidents) have been impeached by the Firm in all of American history. And, of these xx impeached individuals, only eleven were either convicted by the Senate or resigned their role later they were impeached.

The term "impeachment" refers to the House's decision to charge a public official with "loftier 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 unproblematic majority vote.

Later on such a vote, the thing moves to the Senate, which volition conduct a trial and decide 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 majority vote in the Senate.

If the impeached official is convicted, the Senate and so must make up one's mind what sanction to impose upon that official. Under the Constitution, "judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from function, and disqualification to concur and relish any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States." So the Senate effectively must decide whether merely removing the official from office is an advisable sanction, or whether permanent disqualification is warranted.

Although the Congress may just remove and disqualify a public official, federal prosecutors may however 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 property future role.

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, withal, the Senate adamant that a simple majority vote is sufficient for disqualification. Judge Archibald was butterfingers past a vote of 39-35 after he was removed from office.

To be clear, such a simple majority vote may only take place afterward the Senate has already voted to convict an impeached official. Two-thirds of the Senate must first agree to remove someone from part before that official tin can be disqualified — a simple majority cannot, acting on its own, disqualify an official from belongings future part.

Even if Trump is convicted by the Senate — an unlikely event given that the Senate is withal controlled by Republicans — impeachment could only cutting Trump'southward time in office curt by a few days.

Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether unproblematic majority vote is sufficient to disqualify someone from public function after they've already been removed. Humphreys and Porteous were both butterfingers in supermajority votes, and Archibald never brought a example before the Court that could accept allowed the justices to dominion on how many votes are required to disqualify a public official.

Nevertheless, there is a strong constitutional argument that the Senate should exist allowed to disqualify an individual by a simple bulk vote, after that private has already been convicted by a 2-thirds majority.

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

A like logic could exist applied to impeachment trials. Before a public official is convicted by the Senate, they enjoy heightened procedural protections and must be found guilty by a supermajority vote. After they are convicted, withal, they are stripped of those protections and their sentence may be determined by a simple majority of the Senate.

In any event, overcoming the hurdle of convicting Trump will be difficult. If all 50 Senate Democrats agree together, they still need to convince at least 17 Republicans to convict Trump. And the overwhelming majority of Republicans already voted to declare Trump's second impeachment trial unconstitutional — so that's not a great sign for anyone hoping that Trump might exist bedevilled.

The question for Republican senators, yet, is whether they want to take chances 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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