Impeached Presidents in the United States

Introduction

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.” (therefore, only for the most serious of the offenses).

The Constitution also provides the steps of the impeachment process leading to the possible removal from office of the president, vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials. Briefly, the impeachment process is initiated in the House of Representatives and follows these steps:

The House Judiciary Committee considers evidence, holds hearings, and if necessary, prepares articles of impeachment – the actual charges against the official.
If a majority of the Judiciary committee votes to approve the articles of impeachment, the full House debates and votes on them.
If a simple majority of the House votes to impeach the official on any or all of the articles of impeachment, then the official must then stand trial in the Senate.
If a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate votes to convict the official, the official is immediately removed from office. In addition, the Senate may also vote to forbid the official from holding any federal office in the future.
While Congress has no power to impose criminal penalties, such as prison or fines, impeached and convicted officials may subsequently be tried and punished in the courts if they have committed criminal acts.

Impeached Presidents of the United States

Only two presidents have been impeached in United States history, and neither was convicted of the charges filed against him. No president has been convicted of the charges filed against him during impeachment proceedings.

And aside from conviction on impeachment charges, there is no mechanism set forth in the U.S. Constitution that allows for the removal of a failing president. Impeachment is used against a president only when there is evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The removal of a president is not simply left to the whims of voters, though it is not unusual in such a highly partisan atmosphere for opponents of a president to circulate rumors about potential impeachment measures. President Barack Obama was the target of a few impeachment efforts following several scandals that erupted during his two terms in the White House.

Most Americans alive today can name one of the two impeached presidents, William Jefferson Clinton, because of the salacious nature of the Monica Lewinsky affair and because of how quickly and thoroughly the details spread across the World Wide Web as it became commercially accessible for the first time. But the first impeachment came more than a century before Clinton face charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in 1998.

List of Impeached Presidents

Here’s a list of the presidents who were impeached. See below the President who came very close to being impeached.

ANDREW JOHNSON
About the history and impeachment circumstances of Andrew Johnson, see here.

BILL CLINTON

Clinton, the United States’ 42nd president, was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, for allegedly misleading a grand jury about his extramarital affair with Lewinsky in the White House, and then persuading others to lie about it, too.

The charges against Clinton were perjury and obstruction of justice.

After a trial, the Senate acquitted Clinton of both charges on February 12. He went on to apologize for the affair and complete his second term in office, telling a captivated and polarized American public, “Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

Richard M. Nixon: the President who was almost impeached

Richard M. Nixon was certain to be impeached and convicted in 1974, but the 37th president of the United States resigned before he was to face prosecution over the 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party’s headquarters in what became known as the Watergate scandal.

The first president to come perilously close to impeachment was John Tyler, the nation’s 10th president. An impeachment resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives again after his veto of a bill angered lawmakers.

The impeachment initiative failed.

Federal Officials

To date, no federal official has faced impeachment based on grounds of treason. While one federal judge was impeached and removed from the bench for advocating in favor of succession and serving as a judge for the Confederacy during the Civil War, the impeachment was based on charges of refusing to hold court as sworn, rather than treason.

Only two officials—both federal judges—have faced impeachment based on charges that specifically involved bribery or accepting gifts from litigants and both were removed from office.

All of the other impeachment proceedings held against all federal officials to date have been based on charges of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”