Impeachment

What Is Impeachment

Impeachment is a formal charge brought by Congress against a federal official, not the act of removing them from office. The House of Representatives impeaches by a simple majority vote, much like a grand jury issuing an indictment. The Senate then holds a trial, and only a two-thirds vote there can convict the official and remove them.

The grounds are deliberately broad and left to Congress, not the courts, to define. The Framers debated “maladministration” as a standard and rejected it as too vague, settling on “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” instead. Members of Congress cannot be impeached, but the president, vice president, federal judges, and other civil officers can.

Impeachment vs Removal

The most common confusion about impeachment is that it ends a presidency on its own. It does not. Impeachment is also not a criminal trial, and it is not the same as the 25th Amendment, which addresses a president’s inability to serve rather than misconduct. The table below keeps the three apart.

Question	Impeachment	The 25th Amendment	A criminal trial
What it is for	Misconduct in office	Inability to serve, not wrongdoing	Breaking the law
Who decides	The House charges, the Senate convicts	The VP and Cabinet, then Congress if disputed	A judge and jury
Vote or standard needed	House majority, then two-thirds of the Senate	Two-thirds of both chambers if contested	Proof beyond a reasonable doubt
Penalty	Removal and possible disqualification only	Powers transfer to the VP	Prison, fines, criminal record

The penalty row is the part people miss most. Impeachment cannot send anyone to prison, undo a law, or reverse a policy. Its only punishments are removal from office and, in a separate vote, a bar on holding future federal office. Anyone who wants the full mechanics of the inability route can read our 25th Amendment explainer.

The Four Presidential Cases

Four presidents have faced the real prospect of removal, and the Senate has removed none of them. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 and acquitted by a single vote. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before the House could vote. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 and acquitted. Donald Trump was impeached in 2019 and again in 2021, acquitted both times.

1. 1868 Andrew Johnson impeached, acquitted by one vote The Senate fell a single vote short of removing him.
2. 1974 Nixon resigns before a House vote He stepped down as articles headed to the House floor.
3. 1998 Bill Clinton impeached, acquitted The Senate cleared him on both perjury and obstruction.
4. 2019 Trump impeached for abuse of power, acquitted The Senate acquitted on both articles in February 2020.
5. 2021 Trump impeached again for incitement, acquitted Seven Republicans voted to convict, short of two-thirds.

Sources: Senate.gov; Britannica; National Constitution Center.

The presidential cases, 1868 to 2021: 1868 — Andrew Johnson impeached, acquitted by one vote (The Senate fell a single vote short of removing him.). 1974 — Nixon resigns before a House vote (He stepped down as articles headed to the House floor.). 1998 — Bill Clinton impeached, acquitted (The Senate cleared him on both perjury and obstruction.). 2019 — Trump impeached for abuse of power, acquitted (The Senate acquitted on both articles in February 2020.). 2021 — Trump impeached again for incitement, acquitted (Seven Republicans voted to convict, short of two-thirds.).

1868: The House impeached Andrew Johnson over his firing of the Secretary of War in defiance of Congress. The Senate vote to convict came to 35-19, one vote short of the 36 then needed for the two-thirds bar, after Senator Edmund G. Ross cast a decisive “not guilty.”

1974: Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 as the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment over Watergate. He left before the full House could vote, so he was never formally impeached.

1998: The House impeached Bill Clinton on perjury and obstruction of justice charges tied to the Monica Lewinsky investigation. The Senate acquitted, with 45 voting to convict on perjury and a 50-50 split on obstruction, both far short of the 67 votes needed to convict.

2019: The House impeached Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his dealings with Ukraine. In the February 2020 trial the Senate acquitted, with Senator Mitt Romney the lone Republican voting to convict on the abuse charge, the first cross-party conviction vote against any president.

2021: The House impeached Trump a second time for incitement of insurrection after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The Senate vote to convict came to 57-43, with seven Republicans joining, still ten short of the two-thirds threshold.

Impeachment by the Numbers

The record shows a tool that almost never ends in removal at the top, even as it works lower down. Three presidents have been impeached and not one removed. The eight officials the Senate has actually removed were all federal judges.

The gap between impeachment and removal is the two-thirds rule. A simple majority of the House can charge a president, but conviction requires 67 of 100 senators, a level of cross-party agreement that has never materialized for a president. Judges, who lack a party base in the Senate, are the only officials it has cleared, including Alcee Hastings, Halsted Ritter, and Thomas Porteous.

Of the 15 federal judges impeached since 1803, the Senate convicted and removed eight. That is a far higher success rate than the presidential record, where the count of removals stays at zero across more than a century and a half.

Why It Matters

Impeachment matters because it is the only constitutional way to remove a sitting president for misconduct between elections. The Framers built it as the answer to a president who breaks the law or abuses power and cannot be voted out fast enough. Without it, the only check on a first-term president would be the next election.

The two-thirds bar is the catch. Because conviction needs 67 senators, removal demands that a large share of the president’s own party turn against him, and that has never happened. The result is that impeachment functions far more as a public record and a political verdict than as a mechanism that actually removes presidents.

The Honest Disagreement

Serious people disagree about what impeachment has become, and the disagreement is real. We lay out both cases and let you weigh them.

One side sees impeachment as a vital accountability check that is working as intended. In this view the tool exists precisely for a president who abuses power, and using it, even without conviction, puts the conduct on the permanent record and forces every senator to vote on it. The Framers wanted a high bar so that removal would never be casual or purely partisan.

The other side argues that impeachment has hardened into a partisan weapon. Modern votes break largely along party lines, and critics say that turns a grave constitutional remedy into a routine messaging exercise that no longer signals genuine wrongdoing. When the outcome is known before the trial begins, the process can look more like theater than judgment.

The historical record gives both sides something. Bill Clinton’s 1998 trial drew more cross-party acquittal votes than Trump’s two trials, and Mitt Romney in 2020 and seven Republicans in 2021 show the party line is not absolute. We do not declare a winner here. The question is whether a remedy that has never removed a president still does the job the Framers built it for.

Frequently asked questions

Does impeachment remove someone from office? No. Impeachment is only the charge, voted by the House. Removal happens only if two-thirds of the Senate then votes to convict at trial, which has never happened to a president.

Is impeachment a criminal trial? No. It is a political process run by Congress, not a court. The only penalties are removal from office and a possible bar on holding future federal office. A convicted official can still face a separate criminal case in court.

Has any president ever been removed by impeachment? No. Three presidents have been impeached, Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, and the Senate acquitted all of them. Nixon resigned in 1974 before any House vote.

How is impeachment different from the 25th Amendment? Impeachment addresses misconduct and runs through Congress. The 25th Amendment addresses a president who is unable to serve, such as for illness or incapacity, and runs through the vice president and Cabinet.

What you can do

1. Learn how the process actually works. Knowing that impeachment is a charge and removal is a separate two-thirds Senate vote lets you cut through the noise when the word gets thrown around. Share this page when someone confuses the two.

2. Watch how your members of Congress vote on accountability. The House decides whether to impeach and the Senate decides whether to convict. Track how your own representative and senators vote on oversight and accountability questions, and ask them to explain those votes on the record.

3. Demand real oversight, not just impeachment talk. Congress holds power over a president far beyond impeachment, through hearings, subpoenas, and the budget. Contact your representatives and ask them to use those everyday tools to check abuses of power.

4. Read the related power. Our 25th Amendment explainer covers the other path the Constitution offers when a president cannot serve, and how it differs from removal for misconduct.

5. Vote, and vote down the ballot. Because the real check on a president is political, the senators and representatives you elect decide whether accountability ever has the votes. Their records on oversight belong on your ballot.