Impeachment
and what it means for Donald Trump
What is impeachment
Impeachment to most people is when a president is removed from office for a crime. Yes, an impeachment can cause someone to be removed from office, but being impeached doesn't mean they are removed from office. There are three steps to impeachment. the first is to gather the impeachment documents or charges. The next step is to do a majority vote in the Senate to adopt the documents. Next is to bring the accused to the Supreme Court to the Senate depending on which level of government. At this step, the person in government is impeached. The last step is if they aren't guilty they are just impeached, but if they are guilty they are removed from office
When a president is accused of a crime and found guilty
their definition of impeachment- Monicalian Mawi 8th
Past impeachments
There were two past impeachments in the past before Donald Trump. The first impeachment was of Andrew Jhonson for conspiring to remove someone from a political position. The second impeachment was of William Clinton for obstruction of justice and abuse of power. Both of these ended up not proving them guilty and they continued their presidentially.
What has trump done to get his impeachments
What has Trump done to get impeached twice in the first place? He has been impeached for the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. What does abuses of power even mean? It might seem very simple, but if we going to evaluate this we need to get the legal definition clear. It means for a public official to use their position to carry out a wrongful act. Okay, we got our definition, but what is the Senate call abuse of power? They are saying that he used his power to, "solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit his Democratic political rivals" (New York Times paragraph 3 lines 2-4).
What does this all mean for him
So far either he was not proven guilty or they are in the middle of the investigation. This all means as long as he is not proved guilty by the Senate he can continue running for president. If that is good or bad is up to you, but he is still possible for him to be removed from office as long he gives them a reason to get impeached.
Summary
To wrap this up impeachment just means for a person in office to be accused of being guilty. There have been only two presidents who have been impeached before Trump and both of them didn't lead to the removal of office. currently, trump is being impeached for two things. first is the abuse of power, and second is the obstruction of Congress. Due to how impeachment works he won't be removed from office.
Important dates, resources, and vocab.
sources used- senate.gov , usa.gov , New York times and Vox
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/19/21073145/impeachment-trial-abuse-power-dershowitz-graham-schiff & https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/trump-impeached.html & google dictionary
About the Contributor
Paxton Jarvis is in 8th grade as a IB major. It is their first year on the orbit and second for yearbook. They have experience in photography, digital art, web design and animation. They joined the yearbook team for classen sas middle school in 2022. They have won three 1st place photography awards and is a second-class boy scout.