With Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing the launch of an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, speculation has been rife as to whether no. 45 will be the first President to ever be successfully removed from office.
Although three presidents have been impeached in the House – Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – none have ever been convicted by the Senate.
Impeachment of a president requires articles of impeachment to be passed successfully by the House, before a trial in the Senate, with every Senator voting on the president’s guilt.
A supermajority of 66 is required for the president to then be impeached, with the Vice President taking over should this be achieved.
In the case of Trump, the articles of impeachment being successfully passed through the House of Representatives is almost a given, with a Democratic majority and many Republican’s reportedly being willing to cross the aisle and send the articles to the Senate.
It is likely that the Democrats will not just recommend articles of impeachment over the current Ukraine scandal, but over a number of potential wrongdoings allegedly committed during Trump’s tenure.
The catalyst for the inquiry followed a phone call in July between President Trump and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump attempted to bribe the Ukrainian government into investigating the son of Joe Biden.
Joe Biden allegedly stepped in to have a Ukrainian prosecutor dismissed during a trial against the company that Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, has worked for. No such evidence had ever emerged for this, but Trump appeared to seek a Ukrainian investigation into the, before suggesting that Ukraine’s economy would do ‘very well’ after Zelensky appeared to agree.
The Senate will be less likely, with a slim Republican majority, making it difficult to reach the threshold of 66 in order to convict. Although the trial is not meant to be political, the partisan nature of politics in America makes it inevitable that many Republican’s will not cross the aisle; no matter how damning the evidence.
However, Republican stalwart Mike Murphy has suggested that as many as 30 Republican Senators could be in favour of impeachment. In an interview, the former Romney and McCain campaign associate suggested that in a secret ballot, many Republicans would join the Democrats to convict Trump in the Senate.
This is less likely to manifest in practise, with neither the Senate nor House votes being secret ballots. Instead, we are likely to see many Republican’s protect the incumbent, particularly given that the trial is likely to take place just months before the 2020 presidential election.
This may take the overall number extremely close to the necessary 66, although given the current 53-47 arithmetic, the chance of enough Republican’s crossing the aisle might be quite low.
It will likely depend on the severity of the evidence presented and how this impacts public opinion, with those in swing states up for election in 2020 more likely to join the Democrats.
In each electoral cycle one third of the Senate are up for election – each serving 6 years terms and having staggered elections. Those Republican’s not facing electoral pressure in 2020 are perhaps amongst the most likely to also convict the president, depending on the severity of the evidence.
The Ukrainian phone call appears to be an extremely clear smoking gun, with damaging evidence already present in the publicly available transcript; it is alleged that the audio recording is being withheld due to even more damaging evidence.
The successful conviction of Donald Trump in the Senate will likely go to the wire, but if public opinion shifts against the president, many of those 30 Republicans who privately support impeachment may be emboldened to act publicly.
- Also read: Donald Trump Meets Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan
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Calum Paton is a History and Politics student at the University of Warwick. His writing predominantly focuses on American and British politics. Twitter: @Paton_Calum
