impeachment

n.

[Cf. F. empêchement.]
The act of impeaching, or the state of being impeached; as: (a) Hindrance; impediment; obstruction. [Obs.]

Willing to march on to Calais,
Without impeachment.

Shak.

(b) A calling to account; arraignment; especially, of a public officer for maladministration.

The consequence of Coriolanus' impeachment had like to have been fatal to their state.

Swift.

(c) A calling in question as to purity of motives, rectitude of conduct, credibility, etc.; accusation; reproach; as, an impeachment of motives. Shak.

Note: In England, it is the privilege or right of the House of Commons to impeach, and the right of the House of Lords to try and determine impeachments. In the United States, it is the right of the House of Representatives to impeach, and of the Senate to try and determine impeachments.

Articles of impeachment. See under Article. -- Impeachment of waste (Law), restraint from, or accountability for, injury; also, a suit for damages for injury. Abbott.

---

Is the procedure by which “the President, Vice President, and all other civil officers of the United States,” including members of the federal judiciary, can be removed from office if guilty of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Articles of impeachment, or accusations of misconduct, are drafted in the House of Representatives and approved by majority vote; the trial is before the Senate, with a two‐thirds vote needed for conviction. In cases of presidential impeachment, the trial is presided over by the chief justice. Conviction in a case of impeachment can result only in removal from office and disqualification from holding office in future, but does not prevent the guilty party from being held further accountable in regular courts of law. Finally, the presidential pardoning power does not extend to individuals convicted in cases of impeachment.

Impeachment once prevailed in England as an important mechanism to check abusive, high‐ranking ministers, but in the United States it has mainly become a device to remove corrupt lower federal court judges. The chief, and highly controversial, exceptions to this overall evolution have been the impeachment of Chief Justice Samuel Chase, and the impeachments of President Andrew Johnson and President Bill Clinton. As English usage developed, Parliament not infrequently employed impeachment as a means to charge and try high royal officials, including judges, with conviction ordinarily resulting in the death penalty. The framers of the Constitution reduced the consequences of conviction to mere removal from office, yet appear to have borrowed the process primarily as a means of checking the president. From the beginning, however, the Constitution's extension of the process to other federal officers was understood to include members of the judicial branch.

The Constitution's terse handling of impeachment left open a number of issues that continue to be the subject of debate. Perhaps most important of these is what behavior qualifies as a “high crime and misdemeanor.” While some commentators have argued that impeachable matters are confined to criminal offenses, and Congressman Gerald Ford famously asserted that an impeachable offense was whatever Congress said it was, the balance of opinion and practice holds that impeachable conduct entails some serious abuse of office or breach of public trust. Other vexing issues include: whether impeachment is appropriate for misconduct outside of one's official duties; whether judges can be removed for misbehavior that fails to rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors; and whether the federal courts may judicially review an impeachment conviction. Cutting across these and other issues is the further question of whether the same standards that apply to impeachment of the president should also apply to judges. On this last matter, most experts and practice suggest that at least lower federal judges ought to be more easily removed than the chief executive.

Justice Chase remains the only Supreme Court justice who has ever been subjected to the procedure, and his acquittal played an important role in preventing the application of impeachment from becoming overtly political. Chase was an important and controversial member of the founding generation. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was combative, irascible, aggressive, and overbearing. Chase, whom President Washington appointed to the Court in 1796, nevertheless had a first‐rate legal mind and was one of the leading members of the pre–John Marshall Court. He increasingly emerged, however, as an extreme Federalist partisan who vigorously enforced the Sedition Acts, which had been passed during the administration of John Adams to allow prosecution of Republican editors and politicians, especially in the cases of Thomas Cooper, John Fries, and James T. Callender.

While Chase's judicial behavior was improper, the eventual impeachment proceedings brought against him were also highly politicized. In the election of 1800, Thomas Jefferson secured the presidency as his fellow Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, leaving only the national judiciary in Federalist hands. Jefferson himself did not initially desire to attack the judicial department, but more radical Republicans, such as John Randolph of Virginia, did. The new president eventually came to favor the impeachment of Federalist John Pickering, a federal district court judge from New Hampshire. Pickering was both insane and alcoholic and almost certainly engaged in no intentional crime or abuse of office. He became the first federal judge in history to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office as Republican majorities agreed that English and colonial American precedent established that impeachment proceedings could be a means to remove political opponents from office.

The same day that Pickering was convicted, Randolph moved, in the House of Representatives, for impeachment proceedings against Chase. Jefferson, at first, supported this development based upon what he believed to be Chase's ongoing partisan activities from the bench. He withdrew his support, however, when it became clear that Randolph and his allies intended to go after other Federalist members of the Supreme Court, including John Marshall and William Paterson, should Chase be convicted. During the trial itself, Chase and a battery of skilled lawyers mounted a vigorous defense while Randolph, who was not a trained lawyer, botched the prosecution. The conduct of the trial, Jefferson's refusal to enforce party discipline in the final vote, and arguably the realization that a conviction would undermine separation of powers prevented the more zealous Republicans from obtaining the two‐thirds majority necessary to convict.

Chase's acquittal supported the views of those more moderate Republicans who argued that the grounds for impeachment should be either criminal or abuse of office rather than partisan. This view has prevailed down to the present. Although various lower federal court judges have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office, this has occurred only in clear‐cut cases. For members of the Supreme Court the threat of impeachment has been mainly rhetorical. Since Jefferson, all presidents and most members of Congress have generally eschewed the impeachment process as too partisan and cumbersome.

That said, from time to time, individuals, and even groups have called for the impeachment of particular Supreme Court justices for espousing controversial or unpopular points of view. Perhaps the best known example was the campaign to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren. Instituted by the John Birch Society in the early 1960s, the campaign distributed pamphlets and erected numerous billboards, but had no appreciable effect on judicial behavior. In a similar vein, Congressman Gerald Ford sought to make good his politicized views on impeachment by introducing a resolution sponsored by 110 representatives calling for the impeachment of Justice William O. Douglas in 1970.

While Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presided over the Senate trial of President Johnson, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist later presided over the trial of President Clinton, the Supreme Court itself has not dealt with the issue extensively. Mention of the impeachment process by the justices has been mostly incidental to the discussion of other issues, such as the right to trial by jury or the reach of the pardon power.

Bibliography

• Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems (1973).
• Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis (1996)

— Richard E. Ellis

A formal accusation of wrongdoing. To impeach a public official is to accuse him of crimes or misdemeanours in the execution of his duties. Impeachment proceedings normally occur in the lower house of a legislature, with any subsequent trial taking place in the upper house. In England, prior to the development of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, impeachment was used as a means whereby the legislature sought to call to account ministers who saw themselves as answerable primarily, if not exclusively, to the Crown. For example, 1677 the House of Commons impeached the King's chief minister, the Earl of Danby, for negotiating a treaty with the King of France. The House of Lords declined to convict Danby although he was dismissed and committed to the Tower for five years. There have been only two cases of impeachment in Britain in the last two hundred years—Warren Hastings was impeached 1786 arising from alleged misgovernment in India, and Lord Melville was impeached 1806 for corruption in the use of public funds.

In the United States the Constitution provides for the impeachment of federal officials charged with ‘Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanours’. The House of Representatives has ‘the sole Power of Impeachment’ and all impeachments are tried in the Senate with the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court presiding. Conviction requires the agreement of two-thirds of the members present. Since 1787 seven federal judges have been removed following impeachment proceedings.

President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, but survived in the Senate by one vote. 1974 the House Judiciary Committee agreed three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. Nixon was charged with the abuse of his power as President, obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress. Before these articles could be voted on by the full House the President resigned, after being informed that his impeachment and conviction were otherwise inevitable. 1998 the House agreed articles of impeachment against President Clinton on charges of lying about an extramarital relationship. The Senate failed to summon the necessary two-thirds to eject Clinton. The impeachment distracted all branches of the Federal government for more than a year.

— David Mervin/Iain McLean

For more information on impeachment, visit Britannica.com.

Impeachment was a trial by the House of Lords at the instigation of the House of Commons, which presented articles and arranged the management. The first clear example was the presentation in 1386 of Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, but the practice became common in the 17th cent. with the struggle between crown and Parliament, when a number of royal ministers— Bacon, Middlesex (Cranfield), Strafford, and Danby—were impeached. The impeachment of Warren Hastings, which went on for seven years and ended in acquittal, helped to discredit the process and the impeachment of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, in 1806 for peculation was the last.

If a federal official commits a crime or otherwise acts improperly, Congress may impeach—formally charge—and remove that person from office. The House of Representatives votes to impeach, an action similar to an indictment in a court of law. Then the Senate sits as a court to determine guilt or innocence. It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to remove someone from office.

The Constitutional Convention decided that no one should be above the law and that even the President should be subject to impeachment. All civil officers of the government can be removed if

	Impeachment Cases
1797:	William Blount, U.S. senator, Tennessee. Expelled from Senate, charges dropped.
1803:	John Pickering, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office.
1804:	Samuel Chase, Supreme Court justice. Not guilty.
1830:	James H. Peck, federal judge. Not guilty.
1862:	West H. Humphreys, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office.
1868:	Andrew Johnson, President. Not guilty.
1873:	Mark H. Delahay, federal judge. Resigned, no action.
1876:	William Belknap, secretary of war. Not guilty.
1904:	Charles Swayne, federal judge. Not guilty.
1912:	Robert Archbald, judge, U.S. Commerce Court. Guilty, removed from office.
1926:	George W. English, federal judge. Resigned, charges dismissed.
1933:	Harold Louderback, federal judge. Not guilty.
1936:	Halsted Ritter, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office.
1986:	Harry Claiborne, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office.
1988:	Alcee Hastings, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office. (In 1992 Hastings was elected to the House as a Democrat from Florida.)
1989:	Walter Nixon, federal judge. Guilty, removed from office.
1998:	William Jefferson Clinton, President. Not guilty.

impeached and convicted for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (Article 3, Section 4). If a President is impeached, the Constitution specifies that the chief justice of the United States shall preside over the Senate trial.

Article 1, Section 3, of the Constitution states, “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” So, if a person is impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate, that person will be removed from federal office and prevented from holding another federal office at any time in the future.

When a resolution to impeach is introduced on the floor of the House, it is referred to the Judiciary Committee. That committee holds hearings, then takes a formal vote on the articles of impeachment. It reports its findings to the full House, which may drop, amend, approve, or reject the articles by a simple majority vote of those present. A quorum of members—half of the House plus one—is necessary to hold a vote.

If an official is impeached, the House then names a manager or a committee to serve as the prosecutor in the Senate trial. The articles of impeachment are signed by the Speaker of the House and conveyed to the Senate by the managers. They are then transmitted to the impeached official.

Impeached officials may appear on their own behalf or send legal counsel to represent them. Their counsel can question witnesses and present evidence on behalf of the official. At the end of the trial, the Senate votes separately on each article of impeachment. Two-thirds of the senators present are necessary to convict and remove a person from office.

The Senate in recent years has delegated the responsibility of hearing evidence in impeachment cases for judges and other officials (except for the President) to special committees, which then report their findings to the full Senate for a vote. Judge Walter Nixon protested that the entire Senate had not heard the full charges against him. However, in 1993, the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. United States that the Senate had the sole power to decide how to try such cases and allowed Judge Nixon's impeachment to stand.

When a president is impeached, the chief justice of the United States presides over the trial in the Senate. The Senate sits as a body to hear the evidence and arguments. Although the president may be represented by counsel of his choosing, the House managers argue the case for removal. Several articles of impeachment may be brought against the President, but a two-thirds vote in favor of conviction on any single article would be sufficient to remove him from office.

The first impeachment case, in 1797, targeted a U.S. senator, William Blount of Tennessee, who was accused of conspiring with the British to prevent Spanish control of Florida and Louisiana. Although the House voted to impeach Blount, the Senate refused to try him because it had already expelled him from office under its internal rules. This case set the precedent that individuals cannot be impeached after they have left office. In 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, but Nixon's resignation stopped any further impeachment proceedings.

Only one Supreme Court justice has been impeached: Samuel Chase, in 1805, for behaving in a partisan manner. Justice Chase was an outspoken promoter of the Federalist party and an acid critic of the Jeffersonian Republican party. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson became President and the majority in Congress was made up of Jeffersonian Republicans. Justice Chase's flagrant anti-Republican behavior vexed many of the Jeffersonian Republicans, who were determined to strike back at him. The proper moment came in 1805, they believed, after the reelection of Jefferson and a Republican party majority in Congress. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Justice Chase. But the Senate voted not to convict him, and he remained a justice of the Supreme Court until his death in 1811.

The impeachment proceedings against Justice Chase set a precedent that a person should not be impeached and removed from office because of his political opinions. Article 3, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution says, “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” The key issue in Justice Chase's impeachment trial was whether expression of political opinions was a violation of the constitutional provision for holding office “during good Behaviour.”

Impeachment of Presidents

Congress has resorted to impeaching a President in only three cases: President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives but was acquitted by the Senate after a trial in 1868; the House Committee on the Judiciary reported three articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon in 1974, but he resigned before the full House could vote on them; and President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives but was acquitted by the Senate after a trial in 1999.

Although an impeachment proceeding bears a close similarity to a criminal trial, there are substantial differences. First, the President is not necessarily charged with a criminal offense but with improper conduct in performing the duties of his office. Impeachment is not meant to be a partisan proceeding, nor is it used simply to reflect a lack of confidence in the President's policies or leadership by other branches of government. The Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected attempts to make impeachment overtly political. The delegates rejected proposals to make the President removable on the application of a majority of state governors. They rejected impeachment by a mere majority vote of Congress. They also rejected grounds for impeachment that involved the President's political judgment or vague terms such as “maladministration.” They specified instead that the only grounds for impeachment were “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” These terms referred to the abuse of power, misapplication of public funds, corruption, criminal conduct, or violating the separation of powers mandated by the Constitution.

A President may also be held responsible for the conduct of his subordinates. He may be charged with a cover-up if he knowingly conceals information regarding a violation of the law or if he fails to remove such officials from office when evidence of their offenses comes to his attention. He may also be charged with failing to see that the laws are faithfully executed, with failing to institute procedures so that officials will act lawfully, or with a conspiracy to see that the laws are violated. A President who testifies falsely in a judicial proceeding may be charged with perjury or obstruction of justice.

The Senate managers of an impeachment may attempt to prove that the President committed a statutory crime, though criminal guilt is not necessary in a case involving abuse of power. If they cannot do so, they may present evidence that the President engaged in a course of action or a pattern of behavior that demonstrates “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Those seeking a President's impeachment may argue that grounds need not be limited to federal statutes. The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, in assessing grounds for Nixon's impeachment, argued that a President could be removed “for conduct amounting to a gross breach of trust or serious abuse of power” and that these are “not limited to criminal offenses” but refer to acts that undermine the integrity of the government, whether technically criminal or not.

Presidents have several defenses against impeachment. They can argue that impeachment is a criminal trial, in which all the safeguards of the 5th Amendment, which guarantees the due process of law, must apply. And as Nixon put it, “A criminal offense on the part of the President is the requirement for impeachment.” The Republicans defending Nixon in 1973 also took this position, although it repudiated their 1868 stand against Andrew Johnson. Presidents may also argue that they cannot be held responsible for the conduct of their subordinates.

Presidents can claim that they believed that their actions were constitutional. If they are charged with failure to execute the laws, they can claim that the laws conflicted with other laws or was itself unconstitutional. Or they can argue that the alleged offense was a mere technical violation for which impeachment is too severe a penalty. They can argue that the offense was a “low” crime involving personal matters rather than a “high” crime involving abuse of power or violation of the public trust. Or they may claim that the violation of the law was necessary for national security.

Ultimately, the Senate must assess the motives of the President. Did he act in good faith? Was he attempting to usurp or abuse power? Did the ends justify the means? The judgment the senators come to will be political rather than legalistic. The Senate in the Clinton impeachment trial was influenced by public opinion polls, which indicated that Clinton's job approval ratings remained high and that the public, by a 2-to-1 margin, opposed the conviction. Republicans argued that the constitional law of impeachment was being supplanted by an illegitimate “popular law” nullifying the crimes the President had committed. Democrats argued that the Senate should take into account the judgment of the American people.

Conviction by the Senate does not result in criminal penalties. If the offense involved a crime, judicial proceedings may be instituted after the President is removed from office.

See also Chase, Samuel; Clinton, Bill; Independent judiciary; Nixon, Richard M.; Oath of office; Pardon power; Resignation, Presidential; Separation of powers; Watergate investigation (1973–74)

Sources

• Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (New York: Norton, 1973).
• Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).
• Charles Black, Impeachment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).
• Irving Brant, Impeachment (New York: Knopf, 1972).
• Robert C. Byrd, “Impeachment”, in The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1991).
• Michael J. Gerhardt, The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
• William H. Rehnquist and Cynthia Adams Phillips, Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson (New York: Quill, 1999).
• Hans L. Trefousse, Impeachment of a President: Andrew Johnson, the Blacks, and Reconstruction (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999)

Article II, section 4, of the U.S. Constitution provides that "the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Article I, section 2, gives the House of Representatives the "sole Power of Impeachment," and once impeachment articles are brought by the House, according to Article I, section 3, "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present." The penalties for impeachment are also carefully spelled out by the Constitution in Article I, section 3: "Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law." While the president of the United States has general power to grant pardons and reprieves, this power, according to Article II, section 2, is expressly denied him "in Cases of Impeachment." The only other mention of impeachment in the Constitution is in Article III, section 2, which states, "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury."

Much mystery surrounds the proper grounds for impeachment and the precise nature of the proceedings. Impeachment as practiced in England carried with it criminal penalties and could result in the death of the offender. For the United States, however, it is merely a means of removing someone from office, though the conduct that gives rise to impeachment can also serve as a basis for a criminal prosecution. While the framers debated impeachment relatively little, it does appear clear that the language included in the Constitution represented a compromise between those who thought officeholders ought to be removable by the people's representatives for any "maladministration" and those who believed the president and the judges simply could not function if they were subject to removal from office at the discretion of the legislature. Thus, they limited impeachable offenses to "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Treason and bribery are clear enough, but the phrase "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" is not. While the statement in Article III about trials by jury seems to link impeachments with crimes, several English impeachments that were models for the framers did not. And the word "misdemeanors" at the time of the writing of the Constitution meant only "misdeeds" rather than carrying the connotation of minor crimes, as it did later.

Relatively few federal officials have been impeached and tried, although the House has initiated impeachment proceedings against three presidents and one justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The lower court judges who have been impeached have generally been convicted in their Senate trials, and all of them, with the exception of the first judge impeached, John Pickering, who was a habitual drunkard and probably was insane, were guilty of criminal conduct. Following impeachment, most of these judges went to prison or faded into obscurity, although one was subsequently elected as a member of the House of Representatives.

Associate Justice Samuel Chase

After Pickering's removal in 1803, the House began impeachment proceedings against Associate Justice Samuel Chase. Chase had been a strong partisan of John Adams in the election of 1800, and when Thomas Jefferson won that election, Chase found it difficult to hide his displeasure. He seemed sympathetic to the prosecution of Jeffersonian editors for seditious libel during the election campaign and afterward he railed against the administration during a grand jury charge in 1803. The House of Representatives voted articles against him in 1804 and his trial before the Senate in 1805 was a major social, political, and cultural event. Chase had committed no crimes, and his impeachment seems to have been brought both because of his harsh criticism of the Jeffersonians and because his jurisprudential notions on the roles of judge and jury differed from theirs. In the end many Jeffersonians became convinced Chase's removal would compromise the independence of the judiciary and the Senate could not find the required two-thirds vote for his conviction. Chase's acquittal established the principle that judges should not be removed for political reasons and his impeachment suggested the similar notion that judges should seek to remain above politics.

President Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The nation had just ended the Civil War and Congress and the new president were embroiled in disputes over how to accomplish the reconstruction of the Union. Many congressional Republicans suspected that Johnson harbored southern sympathies, so to restrict his ability to control the course of events Congress passed, over Johnson's veto, the Tenure of Office Act (1867), a statute restricting the president from removing any cabinet members until the Senate had confirmed their successors. The constitutionality of this statute was dubious, as the power to hire and fire subordinate executive officials would seem to be a presidential prerogative, but some, even at the time of the framing, believed that such removal could not take place without the concurrence of the same Senate that con-firmed such appointments. Accordingly, when Johnson challenged Congress by dismissing his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, whose sympathies were with Congress rather than with the president, the House brought articles of impeachment against Johnson. Johnson, too, was acquitted, but by only one vote. His impeachment was certainly the product of unusual circumstances, but it did seem to imply that ignoring congressional sentiment or abuse of office might constitute "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Congress had even taken care to specify in the Tenure of Office Act that failure to follow the act would be a "high misdemeanor."

President Richard M. Nixon

The next case involving a presidential impeachment came more than a century later, and was also concerned with abuse of office, although the articles contemplated involved the commission of crimes as well. This was the proposed impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon and was the final chapter in a political crisis known as Watergate. The Watergate was an apartment complex in Washington, D.C., that housed the offices of the Democratic National Committee. During the presidential campaign of 1972, operatives eventually linked to persons working in Nixon's White House broke into the offices, seeking materials that have never been revealed. The White House sought to cover up its involvement in the debacle, at one point even misleading the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by claiming that important Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) matters would be compromised if the federal investigatory agency probed too deeply into the White House's operatives. After the Supreme Court forced the White House to turn over taped evidence of meetings Nixon attended that involved plans to misuse the FBI and CIA for political damage control, the president's position became untenable. The Senate held hearings that exposed all sorts of official misconduct, and trials of the Watergate burglars revealed the connections with the White House. The House Judiciary Committee completed its hearings on impeachment articles and recommended impeachment to the full House. Nixon's political support deteriorated even among members of his own party, and in August 1974, before the full House could vote, he became the first president to resign his office. Doing so, he avoided becoming the first elected president to be impeached.

President William Jefferson Clinton

That dubious distinction went to William Jefferson Clinton in December 1998. The Nixon impeachment and the Chase impeachment were the models most often turned to in the proceedings against Clinton, although the genesis of his impeachment was different from theirs. During Clinton's campaign for the presidency in 1992 and his entire tenure in office, he was accused of financial chicanery and extramarital dalliances. His political opponents also charged that he and his wife misused White House facilities and staff positions for the benefit of themselves and their personal and political associates. Pursuant to the then-active Independent Counsel Law, a special prosecutor, the former federal judge Kenneth Starr, was appointed to investigate. The Independent Counsel Law required that Starr submit to Congress any evidence he found of impeachable offenses.

After an investigation that cost more than $50 million, Starr found no clear evidence of any wrongdoing with regard to financial manipulations or misuse of the White House. Nevertheless, Starr referred to Congress evidence he had discovered in connection with a private lawsuit brought against Clinton alleging sexual misconduct. The evidence demonstrated the president lied under oath in a deposition, sought to get others to file false affidavits, sought to conceal evidence, lied to a grand jury investigating these events, and sought through other means to "obstruct justice" in the case. To the end Clinton denied any wrongdoing, but the evidence of his perjury and obstruction of justice was clear and strong enough for the civil trial court judge to fine him for contempt. Clinton lost his license to practice law in Arkansas for five years.

A majority of the House of Representatives, following some exceptionally stormy hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, in December 1998 voted articles of impeachment against the president for his perjury and obstruction of justice. Virtually all of the House Republicans voted for the measure, and as they controlled the chamber and only a majority is required for impeachment, they prevailed. No witnesses appeared before the Senate, a first in impeachment trial proceedings, and the House managers were severely restricted in the evidence they were allowed to present. The Senate voted on 12 February 1999. Not one Senate Democrat voted to remove the president, though many criticized his miscon-duct. Fifty Republicans voted to convict on one of the charges and forty-five voted to convict on the other, numbers far short of the two-thirds majority, so Clinton served his remaining two years in office.

The great constitutional question in the Clinton proceedings was whether or not the president's conduct in a private lawsuit was proper grounds for impeachment and removal from office. If Clinton was guilty of the miscon-duct with which he was charged, and few reasonable observers doubted that he was guilty of the commission of many felonies, his detractors said this was intolerable in the only federal official who takes a constitutional oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. Further, the Republicans maintained that this evidence of bad character was sufficient to prove Clinton should not continue as president. Clinton's Democratic defenders argued that, even if he had done the things alleged, these were essentially private matters, that such personal peccadilloes were not disqualifications for public office. It was true that earlier impeachment cases seemed to involve grave matters of state or abuse of office and that Clinton's misdeeds seemed different in kind. Nevertheless, some scholars supporting the impeachment pointed out that the framers considered personal virtue important and wrote that impeachment was a tool to ensure that only "fit characters" served the nation. Clinton's acquittal and the political maelstrom his impeachment unleashed likely means that impeachment will be reserved in the near future for cases of clearly official misconduct. But it is also likely that the "character" issue will remain an important one in elective politics.

Bibliography

Berger, Raoul. Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973.

Gerhardt, Michael J. The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Hoffer, Peter Charles, and N. E. H. Hull. Impeachment in America, 1635–1805. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1984.

Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. New York: Knopf, 1990.

Presser, Stephen B. "Would George Washington Have Wanted Bill Clinton Impeached?" George Washington University Law Review 67 (1999): 666–681.

Whittington, Keith E. Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

---

Impeachment is the process by which the president, vice president, federal judges and justices, and all civil officials of the United States may be removed from office. Officials may be impeached for treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. The House of Representatives has sole authority to bring charges of impeachment, by a simple majority vote, and the Senate has sole authority to try impeachment charges. An official may be removed from office only upon conviction, which requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. The Constitution provides that the chief justice shall preside when the president is tried for impeachment.

Previous question:	Can a president be removed from office?
Next question:	How many presidents have been impeached?

---

This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

A process used to charge, try, and remove public officials for misconduct while in office.

Impeachment is a fundamental constitutional power belonging to Congress. This safeguard against corruption can be initiated against federal officeholders from the lowest cabinet member all the way up to the president and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Besides providing the authority for impeachment, the U.S. Constitution details the methods to be used. The two-stage process begins in the House of Representatives with a public inquiry into allegations, and culminates, if necessary, with a trial in the Senate. State constitutions model impeachment processes for state officials on this approach. At both the federal and state levels, impeachment is rare: from the passage of the Constitution to the mid-1990s, only fifty impeachment proceedings were initiated, and only a third of these went as far as a trial in the Senate. The reluctance of lawmakers to use this power is a measure of its gravity; it is generally only invoked by evidence of criminality or substantial abuse of power.

The roots of impeachment date to ancient Athens. Its place in the U.S. Constitution was secured by the influence of English common law on the Framers of the Constitution. Originally, any English subject, politician, or ruler could institute impeachment charges in Parliament. By the fourteenth century, this power became the exclusive domain of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In 1776, the American colonies included much of the English tradition in state constitutions, but the delegates of the Constitutional Convention hotly debated how best to embody it in the federal Constitution. Their most contentious question was over which offenses should be considered impeachable.

The result of the Framers' debate was a compromise: they borrowed language from English common law, but adapted the grounds of impeachment. These grounds are specified in Article II, Section 4: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." The choice of the phrase "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" left the exact definition of impeachable offenses open to interpretation by Congress. It has invited considerable debate, but it is generally read to mean both indictable offenses and other serious noncriminal misconduct. The latter has included corruption, dereliction of constitutional duty, and violation of limitations on the power of an office. Under the Constitution, federal judges are held to the most exacting standard: they may remain on the bench only "during good Behaviour" (art. III, sec. 1).

Impeachment is conducted in two stages. Impeachment proceedings begin in the House of Representatives (art. I, sec. 2). This stage satisfies the Framers' belief that impeachment should be a public inquiry into charges against an official, and it involves fact-finding at hearings. After accumulating all the evidence, the House votes on whether or not to impeach. A vote against impeachment ends the process. A vote to impeach formally advances the process to its second stage through what is called adoption of the articles of impeachment. Each article is a formal charge with conviction on any one article being sufficient for removal. The case is then sent to the Senate, which organizes the matter for trial (art. I, sec. 3).

During the trial, the Senate follows unique rules. There is no jury (art. III, sec. 2). Instead, the Senate is transformed into a quasi-judicial body that hears the case, and the impeached official can attend or be represented by counsel. The vice president presides over the trial of any official except the president, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides over the trial of the president. To convict, a two-thirds majority is needed. The punishments for conviction are removal from office and disqualification from holding office again. No presidential pardon is possible (art. II, sec. 2). Additional criminal charges can be brought against convicted officials, but these are pursued in court and are separate from the impeachment process.

Impeachment is not often pursued. President Andrew Johnson was nearly impeached as a result of a bitter struggle in 1868 between his exercise of executive power and congressional will. He escaped an impeachment conviction in the Senate by a single vote. In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon, embroiled in the Watergate scandal, resigned rather than face almost certain impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee had recommended that the full House take up three articles of impeachment against Nixon: obstruction of justice, abuse of constitutional authority, and refusal to answer the committee's subpoenas.

Congress has adopted the articles of impeachment against one senator, William Blount; one cabinet member, William W. Belknap; and one Supreme Court justice, Samuel Chase. It has also voted to impeach a small number of federal appeals and district court judges. In 1989, U.S. district court judge Alcee Hastings, of Miami, became only the twelfth federal judge in U.S. history to be impeached. His case was unique: he was the first African American to be appointed to the Florida federal bench, and also the only judge to be impeached after an acquittal in a criminal trial. The House voted to adopt seventeen articles of impeachment against him in 1988. After Hastings unsuccessfully challenged his impeachment in court in 1989, the Senate convicted him on eight of the articles and removed him from office.

Impeachment remains the ultimate check on the abuse of power. By providing this power to Congress, the Framers drew on a long tradition of democratic skepticism about leaders, ensuring that they will serve the people only so long as they respect the law and their office. In this sense, the power of impeachment also stands ready to thwart tyranny. Calls are occasionally made for reform that would streamline the impeachment process, but its rare invocation and tradition of service make such reform unlikely.

A formal accusation of wrongdoing against a public official. According to the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives can vote to impeach an official, but the Senate actually tries the case. Several presidencies have been blemished by impeachment or the threat of impeachment: President Andrew Johnson was impeached after the Civil War but was acquitted. President Richard Nixon resigned from office as the House of Representatives prepared to initiate impeachment proceedings. President William Jefferson Clinton was impeached in 1998 but was acquitted by the Senate the following year.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)