In the United States, federal impeachment is the process by which the House of Representatives charges the president, vice president, or another civil federal officer for alleged misconduct. The House can impeach an individual with a simple majority of the present members or other criteria adopted by the House according to Article One, Section 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.
Most impeachments have involved alleged crimes committed while in office, but there is no requirement for the misconduct to be an indictable crime. Some officials have been impeached and convicted for crimes committed before taking office, and there have been instances where a former official was tried after leaving office. An earlier version from 2005 is at https://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-806.pdf . The official who is impeached may continue to serve their term until a trial leads to a judgement that directs their removal from office or until they leave office through other means, such as resignation. A two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senators present at the trial is required for conviction under Article One, Section 3, Clause 6 of the Constitution.
The nature of the impeachment proceedings is remedial rather than punitive, with the only remedy being removal from office. Since all officers in the federal government are confirmed in the Senate, officers appointed under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution may also be disqualified from holding any other appointed office under the United States in the future. As the process is not punitive, an individual may also be subject to criminal or civil trial, prosecution, and conviction under the law after removal from office. Additionally, the president is constitutionally barred from pardoning an impeached and convicted person to protect them from the consequences of a conviction in an impeachment trial, as the conviction itself is not a punishment.
Constitutional provisions Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution provides:
Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
Article II, Section 2 provides:
Article II, Section 4 provides:
Impeachable offenses The Constitution limits grounds of impeachment to "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors", but does not itself define "high crimes and misdemeanors".
Types of misconduct Congressional materials have cautioned that the grounds for impeachment "do not all fit neatly and logically into categories" because the remedy of impeachment is intended to "reach a broad variety of conduct by officers that is both serious and incompatible with the duties of the office".Staff of the Impeachment Inquiry, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment, 93rd Conf. 2nd Sess. (Feb. 1974), 1974 Impeachment Inquiry Report Congress has identified three general types of conduct that constitute grounds for impeachment, although these categories should not be understood as exhaustive:
Improperly exceeding or abusing the powers of the office; Behavior incompatible with the function and purpose of the office; and Misusing the office for an improper purpose or for personal gain.
High crimes and misdemeanors
"High crimes and misdemeanors", in the legal and common parlance of England in the 17th and 18th centuries, is corrupt activity by those who have special duties that are not shared with common persons. Toward the end of the 18th century, "high crimes and misdemeanors" acquired a more technical meaning. As Blackstone says in his Commentaries: "The first and principal high misdemeanor ... was mal-administration of such high offices as are in public trust and employment."
The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" was a common phrase when the U.S. Constitution was written and did not require any stringent or difficult criteria for determining guilt, but meant the opposite. The crimes are called "high crimes" because they are carried out by a person in a position of public authority, or by misusing the position of public authority they have been given. It does not mean that the crimes themselves are unusual or "higher" types of crime. The phrase was historically used to cover a very broad range of crimes. In 1974 the Senate's Judiciary Committee's stated that High Crimes and Misdemeanors' has traditionally been considered a 'term of art', like such other constitutional phrases as 'levying war' and 'due process'."1974 report: "The Historical Origins of Impeachment"
Several commentators have suggested that Congress alone may decide for itself what constitutes a "high Crime or Misdemeanor", especially since the Supreme Court decided in Nixon v. United States that it did not have the authority to determine whether the Senate properly "tried" a defendant. In 1970, then-House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford defined the criterion as he saw it: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.""Gerald Ford's Remarks on the Impeachment of Supreme Court Justice William Douglas". April 15, 1970. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
Historical examples Of the 22 impeachments voted by the House:
No official has been charged with treason. Three officials have been charged with bribery: Robert W. Archbald – tried, removed Alcee Hastings – tried, removed William W. Belknap – resigned prior to impeachment, later acquitted The remaining charges against all the other officials fall under the category of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors".
Standard of proof The standard of proof required for impeachment and conviction is left to the discretion of individual representatives and senators, respectively. Defendants have argued that impeachment trials are in the nature of criminal proceedings, with convictions carrying grave consequences for the accused, and that therefore proof beyond a reasonable doubt should be the applicable standard. House Managers have argued that a lower standard would be appropriate to better serve the purpose of defending the community against abuse of power, since the defendant does not risk forfeiture of life, liberty, or property, for which the reasonable doubt standard was set.
Criminal vs non-criminal activity In drawing up articles of impeachment, the House has placed little emphasis on criminal conduct. Less than one-third of the articles that the House have adopted have explicitly charged the violation of a criminal statute or used the word "criminal" or "crime" to describe the alleged conduct. Officials have been impeached and removed for drunkenness, biased decision-making, or inducing parties to enter financial transactions, none of which is specifically criminal. Two of the articles against President Andrew Johnson were based on rude speech that reflected badly on the office: President Johnson had made "harangues" criticizing the Congress and questioning its legislative authority, refusing to follow laws, and diverting funds allocated in an army appropriations act, each of which brought the presidency "into contempt, ridicule, and disgrace".See Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, in Impeachment—Selected Materials, Committee on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., Impeachment—Selected Material 692 (Comm. Print 1973). A number of individuals have been impeached for behavior incompatible with the nature of the office they hold. Some impeachments have addressed, at least in part, conduct before the individuals assumed their positions: for example, Article IV against Judge Thomas Porteous related to false statements to the FBI and Senate in connection with his nomination and confirmation to the court.
Conversely, not all criminal conduct is arguably impeachable: in 1974, the Judiciary Committee rejected an article of impeachment against President Nixon alleging that he committed tax fraud, primarily because that "related to the President's private conduct, not to an abuse of his authority as President".
Debate regarding impeachable officials The Constitution gives Congress the authority to impeach and remove "The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States" upon a determination that such officers have engaged in treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The Constitution does not articulate who qualifies as a "civil officer of the United States".The Constitution also discusses the president's power to appoint "Officers of the United States", "the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments", and "Inferior officers". These are different.
Federal judges are subject to impeachment. In fact, 15 of 21 officers impeached, and all eight officers removed after Senate trial, have been judges. The most recent impeachment effort against a Supreme Court justice that resulted in a House of Representatives investigation was against Associate Justice William O. Douglas. In 1970, Representative Gerald R. Ford (R-MI), who was then House minority leader, called for the House to impeach Douglas. However, a House investigation led by Congressman Emanuel Celler (D-NY) determined that Ford's allegations were baseless. According to Professor Joshua E. Kastenberg at the University of New Mexico, School of Law, Ford and Nixon sought to force Douglas off the Court in order to cement the "Southern strategy" as well as to provide cover for the invasion of Cambodia.Joshua E. Kastenberg, The Campaign to Impeach Justice William O. Douglas: Nixon, Vietnam, and the Conservative Attack on Judicial Independence (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2019)
Within the executive branch, any "principal officer" appointed by the president, including a head of an agency such as a Secretary, Administrator, or Commissioner, is a "civil officer of the United States" subject to impeachment. There has, however, been debate as to whether Congress may impeach a lower-level officer. Archibald Maclaine, a delegate to the North Carolina ratifying convention, stated, “[i]t appears to me ... the most horrid ignorance to suppose that every officer, however trifling his office, is to be impeached for every petty offense ... I hope every gentleman ... must see plainly that impeachments cannot extend to inferior officers of the United States.” On the other hand, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote, “all officers of the United States [] who hold their appointments under the national government, whether their duties are executive or judicial, in the highest or in the lowest departments of the government, with the exception of officers in the army and navy, are properly civil officers within the meaning of the constitution, and liable to impeachment.”