By Sophie Foster
Opinion Editor
The two top contenders for the presidency next year are both in hot, opinion-rich waters.
President Joe Biden presently faces a potential congressional impeachment inquiry as a result of potentially earning benefits from illegal business deals conducted in Ukraine and China by his son, Hunter Biden, according to NPR.
Meanwhile, according to ABC News, after two impeachments in the House of Representatives and amid an ongoing legal battle as a result of alleged election interference in 2020, many Americans feel former President Donald Trump should not be eligible for reelection.
The statistics are complex and sometimes convoluted. According to ABC News, 44% believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings in President Biden’s case, and an equivalent 44% believe Trump should be prohibited from serving as president. The reasoning cited for the latter belief is the United States’ Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which “prohibits people from holding public office if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
The underlining reality of impeachment here, though, is perhaps even more confounding.
To begin with: no impeached president has ever been removed from office in American history.
According to USA.gov, the House of Representatives initiated impeachment proceedings 60 times in U.S. history, resulting in 21 impeachments and eight removals from office, all of which were federal judges.
In total, there have been five instigated impeachments of U.S. presidents: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Richard Nixon in 1974, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in both 2019 and 2021. Johnson, Clinton, and Trump, impeached by the House, were not found guilty in the Senate and were thus not removed from office. Nixon, meanwhile, resigned before the inquiry could be completed.
There are two aspects of this history worth noting here: first, that the gaps between impeachment inquiries are shrinking substantially as political landscapes become increasingly divided. Second, that impeachment rarely succeeds as an accountability initiative.
The way the country’s impeachment process functions requires the House to first bring articles of impeachment against the official in question, according to USA.gov. If the House adopts these articles, the official is impeached. However, in order for said official to be subsequently removed from office, the Senate must then hold an impeachment trial and find the official guilty. This, consistently, is the sticking point: the Senate has not ever found a sitting president guilty of the ”treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors” the impeachment process demands they be guilty of.
Why, then, are Americans so fixated on impeachment lately, when it famously leads to no results other than a flat-falling “gotcha!” and tense political rhetoric?
According to NPR, while there are not many formal rules and regulations for the impeachment process, the country is actively straying further and further from precedence. To begin with, no formal vote is yet cast regarding President Biden’s potential impeachment. While not a mandated component of the process, voting was an aspect of all formal impeachment inquiries.
“This current attempt to conduct an impeachment inquiry is unlike any others I think we’ve had in American history, because in the past there’s always been some credible evidence of wrongdoing by the president that is part of the complaint against the President,” Professor of Constitutional Law Michael Gerhardt said for NPR.
Additionally, all previous presidential impeachments were undertaken as a result of actions transpiring during the presidency, not nearly a decade before, as is the case for President Biden. There is also no confirmed date for the alleged impeachable offenses due to a lack of evidence thus far produced by the House’s investigating team.
That being said, precedent is not the sole factor to be considered here. Equally poignant is the way in which disgruntled Americans lean on impeachment as a route to justice they feel they are owed.
Yes, there have been five formal inquiries. However, calls for impeachment have markedly increased in commonality in the contemporary political sphere: most recently, both former Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama were also the faces of this rhetoric. They both just had the fortune Trump and Biden did not: these calls were not given political credence.
According to NPR, “impeachment is supposed to be reserved for grave offenses that present an ongoing threat to the country, making removal from office the only remedy.”
The simultaneous uncertainties of whether or not Biden’s actions present this ongoing threat to the country and whether or not they will lead to an unprecedented removal from office will likely remain in the air for some time.
Until solutions are put forth, it may be time for Americans to seek out more effective accountability measures, or to think more critically as they elect their officials. If impeachment is largely bureaucratic and symbolic, what will prevent our elected officials from having their harm enabled?
Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Photo Caption: Americans’ impeachment frenzies began with former President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal in the 1970s and have apparently not slowed much since.