While the House has the sole pow­er to bring about an impeach­ment accord­ing to Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 2, the Sen­ate has sole pow­er to hold impeach­ment tri­als and make a ver­dict under Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 3. If a pres­i­dent is being tried, the chief jus­tice of the U.S. Supreme Court pre­sides rather than the vice pres­i­dent. A two-thirds major­i­ty of the Sen­ate is required to con­vict.

Only three pres­i­dents have faced impeach­ment tri­als: Andrew Jack­son, Bill Clin­ton and Don­ald Trump. Richard Nixon faced an impeach­ment inquiry in the House but resigned before it reached the Sen­ate. The pres­i­dent, vice pres­i­dent and any oth­er civ­il offi­cers of the U.S. gov­ern­ment, includ­ing fed­er­al judges, can be impeached accord­ing to Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 4. 

Pres­i­dent Trump is the only pres­i­dent who has been impeached more than once. The first impeach­ment arti­cles were intro­duced in the House on Dec. 18, 2019. The arti­cles claimed that Trump “solicit­ed the inter­fer­ence of a for­eign gov­ern­ment, Ukraine, in the 2020 Unit­ed States Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion” by pres­sur­ing Ukraine to announce inves­ti­ga­tions that ben­e­fit­ted his reelec­tion and harmed his polit­i­cal oppo­nents. The arti­cles said that he harmed nation­al secu­ri­ty and the process of democ­ra­cy. They also alleged that Trump obstruct­ed Con­gress by direct­ing “the unprece­dent­ed, cat­e­gor­i­cal, and indis­crim­i­nate defi­ance of sub­poe­nas issued by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives pur­suant to its ‘sole Pow­er of Impeach­ment.’” 

Trump was acquit­ted of these charges on Feb. 5, 2020 with 48 guilty votes — 45 Democ­rats, two inde­pen­dents and one Repub­li­can — and 52 not guilty votes, which were all Repub­li­can, accord­ing to the U.S. Sen­ate vote sum­ma­ry. 

His sec­ond impeach­ment arti­cles were intro­duced in the House on Jan. 11, 2021, on charges relat­ed to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capi­tol build­ing by his sup­port­ers.  

“Incit­ed by Pres­i­dent Trump, mem­bers of the crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among oth­er objec­tives, inter­fere with the Joint Session’s solemn con­sti­tu­tion­al duty to cer­ti­fy the results of the 2020 Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, unlaw­ful­ly breached and van­dal­ized the Capi­tol, injured and killed law enforce­ment per­son­nel, men­aced Mem­bers of Con­gress, the Vice Pres­i­dent, and Con­gres­sion­al per­son­nel, and engaged in oth­er vio­lent, dead­ly, destruc­tive, and sedi­tious acts,” the arti­cles alleged. 

There were 57 sen­a­tors who vot­ed to con­vict — 50 Democ­rats and sev­en Repub­li­cans – and 43 sen­a­tors, all Repub­li­cans, who vot­ed to acquit. Impeach­ment tri­als require a two-third major­i­ty (67 votes) to con­vict, so Trump was acquit­ted.

—by Mikay­la Bun­nell, UConn Jour­nal­ism