How The House Of Representatives Deals With Impeachment

The impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump is taking up increasingly space each day — at the office coffee machine, at the world wide web watercooler otherwise referred to as Twitter, and even Lizzo concerts. You likely already know the broad strokes of what that demonstrates, yet because the topic rises once again in the broader public consciousness, it’s time for a brief refresher on how the impeachment process works, in both the Residence of Representatives and the Senate.


There’s a lot of processes that Congress could follow here, though they are under no obligation to do so. The Constitution doesn’t mention much about how to impeach a president, so we have to lean on historical precedent to calculate how impeachment proceedings may play out this time around.


Jody Baumgartner, the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of political science at East Carolina University, told MTV News that the full method of impeachment is simply the “ultimate check on executive power.” He added that “the constitution is intentionally vague about how each Home is to conduct its business,” which means there really are a lot of ways the upcoming weeks, months, and (gulp) possibly even years could go.


Here’s what we do know: Impeachment proceedings have to go by means of the Home of Representatives and the Senate. So let’s take things one step at a time, with a loose guide on how a president might be impeached in the House:


Step 1: Get To Know The House’s Role In The Impeachment Inquiry


Impeachment is, in its most generic terms, charging an official with a crime or misdemeanor. The House’s role is simply to bring those expenses against an official (in this case, President Trump) as “part of its oversight and investigatory responsibilities,” according to the U.S. Office of the Historian.


The Home will charge the official, and it’s the Senate’s job to take that charge to trial. If the home decides to charge the president, that indicates the president will technically be impeached — yet the Home doesn’t have the power to actually remove the president from office.


Step 2: Launch Your Battleships


If the members of the Home believe the president has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” which are impeachable offenses, according to the Constitution, they can launch a formal impeachment inquiry.


That’s where things start to get a little messy, so buckle in. There really are two ways the Home can launch the inquiry: One, a solitary member of the Residence can introduce impeachment resolutions like any other bill, or two, the full Residence could initiate proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry, according to the U.S. Office of the Historian. For both options, a majority of the Home has vote group in attempt to proceed — this isn’t a vote for impeachment, yet is simply a vote to authorize an inquiry.


While in the impeachment processes for former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, the complete Residence voted and passed resolutions to look into impeachment inquiries, yet things are already panning out differently while in the Trump presidency, given Congress might just…. Not do either alternative. Nancy Pelosi, the current Speaker, already sanctioned the inquiry, and there really is, naturally, much debate about how that might impact the investigation.


There’s so much debate on it, that the president’s administration mentioned in a 8-page letter that his administration won’t participate in the investigation, in part, because there has been no formal vote to start an impeachment inquiry.


Pelosi called the letter “manifestly wrong” and added that “the White Home should be warned that continued efforts to hide the truth of the President's abuse of power from the American people will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction,” in a statement Tuesday night, according to NPR.


Step 3: It’s Time To Investigate


No matter how the Home handles step two, there will be an investigation into the president. Throughout Nixon and Clinton’s impeachment processes, the speaker of the Residence directed the Home Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachments, to hold a hearing on that resolution. That committee is now leading the investigation here, also, with the help of four other committees: The Oversight Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Financial Services Committee, and the Foreign Affairs Committee. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) of the Residence Judiciary Committee claimed in a court filing, according to the New York Times, that the committee is already investigating impeachment. (Trump’s Justice Department, on the other hand, says that since there has been no full Home resolution, the committee is just engaged in a routine oversight proceeding, the Times announced in mid-September.)


However the Home could, theoretically, set up a different, special panel to nickname the proceedings. Or, they could skip that altogether and just hold a floor vote on impeachment articles without having any committee vet them. Both of these options seem pretty unlikely since Nadler is already investigating.


Here’s how that investigation works: Residence Representatives on their respective Committees gather evidence, subpoena witnesses, and review data about the president. Once their investigation is complete, the Judiciary Committee will most likely determine whether or not to propose articles of impeachment.


If an eas majority of the Home Judiciary Committee agrees that there’s not enough evidence of wrongdoing, the process is over, there’s no impeachment, and the president remains in office. (That’s unlikely to happen this time around, considering the partisan makeup of the committee: Of the 41 members, just 17 are Republicans and 24 are Democrats.) If they find that the President has committed impeachable offenses, they draft articles of impeachment and send them to the complete Residence for a vote.


Step 4: A Home Vote


If the Judiciary Committee determines that the findings are sufficient, the Home will hold a floor vote (which is that long process you’ve probably seen on C-SPAN). If fewer than a majority of Home members vote to impeach, the president stays in office.


That, also, is unlikely to happen — of the 435 people in Congress, just 197 are Republican, while 235 are Democratic (one is independent and there really are currently two vacancies, according to the U.S. Residence of Representatives Press Gallery). And of these Democrats, the Washington Post notes that 227 support an impeachment inquiry, coupled with four Republicans who mention they support an investigation into Trump’s phone call with the President of Ukraine, and whichever subsequent coverup concerned at least one whistleblower.


Couple that with this statistic: Around half of respondents to a few independent polls support an impeachment inquiry. Plenty of lawmakers have track records that propose they don’t routinely listen to their constituents, although public pressure is key impeachment proceedings. In case you feel strongly, you know what to do: Call your lawmaker.


Step 5: It Heads To The Senate


If a majority of the Residence votes to impeach, the president is technically impeached, though that may not mean they’re removed from office. That decision is then up to the Senate, who holds a trial. Former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both acquitted at that stage in the process. The only other president at the center of an impeachment inquiry, Richard Nixon, resigned before the Home voted.


If the Trump administration doesn’t comply, the Home can continue with its investigation, however it will be a lot more complicated. The U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Already did not appear for testimony before Residence lawmakers at the direction of the State Department, according to CBS News.


certainly, that directive could come back to haunt this administration. The first article of impeachment levied against Nixon was about how the president “has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice.”