At the federal level, the impeachment process is a three-step procedure.
- First, the Congress investigates. This investigation typically begins in the House Judiciary Committee, but may begin elsewhere. For example, the Nixon impeachment inquiry began in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The facts that led to impeachment of Bill Clinton were first discovered in the course of an investigation by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.
- Second, the House of Representatives must pass, by a simple majority of those present and voting, articles of impeachment, which constitute the formal allegation or allegations. Upon passage, the defendant has been "impeached".
- Third, the Senate tries the accused. In the case of the impeachment of a president, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. For the impeachment of any other official, the Constitution is silent on who shall preside, suggesting that this role falls to the Senate's usual presiding officer, the President of the Senate who is also the Vice President of the United States. Conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds supermajority vote. The result of conviction is removal from office.
Rules[edit]
A number of rules have been adopted by the House and Senate, and are honored by tradition.
Jefferson's Manual, which is integral to the Rules of the House of Representatives,
[16] states that impeachment is set in motion by charges made on the floor, charges proferred by a memorial, a member's resolution referred to a committee, a message from the president, or from facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House. It further states that a proposition to impeach is a question of high privilege in the House and at once supersedes business otherwise in order under the rules governing the order of business.
The House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House[17] is a reference source for information on the rules and selected precedents governing the House procedure, prepared by the House Parliamentarian. The manual has a chapter on the House's rules, procedures, and precedent for impeachment.
In 1974, as part of the preliminary investigation in the Nixon impeachment inquiry, the staff of the Impeachment Inquiry of the House Judiciary Committee prepared a report,
Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment.
[6] The primary focus of the Report is the definition of the term "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" and the relationship to criminality, which the Report traces through history from English roots, through the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the history of the impeachments before 1974.
The 1974 report has been expanded and revised on several occasions by the Congressional Research Service, and the current version
Impeachment and Removal dates from October 2015.
[1] While this document is only staff recommendation, as a practical matter, today it is probably the single most influential definition of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
The Senate has formal
Rules and Procedures of Practice in the Senate When Sitting on Impeachment Trials.
[18]
Calls for impeachment, and Congressional power to investigate[edit]
See also:
Impeachment investigations of United States federal officials
While the actual impeachment of a federal public official is a rare event, demands for impeachment, especially of presidents, are common,
[19] going back to the administration of
George Washington in the mid-1790s.
While almost all of them were for the most part frivolous and were buried as soon as they were introduced, several did have their intended effect. Treasury Secretary
Andrew Mellon[20] and Supreme Court Justice
Abe Fortas both resigned in response to the threat of impeachment hearings, and, most famously, President
Richard Nixon resigned from office after the House Judiciary Committee had already reported articles of impeachment to the floor.
In advance of the formal resolution by the full House, the relevant committee may investigate, subpoena witnesses, and prepare a preliminary report of findings. For example:
- In 1970, then–House minority leader Gerald R. Ford attempted to initiate impeachment proceedings against Associate Justice William O. Douglas; the attempt included a 90-minute speech on the House floor.[21] The House did not vote to initiate proceedings.
- In 1973, the Senate Watergate hearings (with testimony from John Dean, and the revelation of the White House tapes by Alexander Butterfield) were held in May and June 1973, and the House Judiciary Committee authorized Chairman Rodino to commence an investigation, with subpoena power, on October 30, 1973. The full House voted to initiate impeachment proceedings on February 6, 1974, that is, after nine months of formal investigations by various Congressional committees.
- Other examples are discussed in the article on Impeachment investigations of United States federal officials.
Targets of congressional investigations have challenged the power of Congress to investigate before a formal resolution commences impeachment proceedings. For example,
President Buchanan wrote to the committee investigating his administration:
I do, therefore, ... solemnly protest against these proceedings of the House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of the coordinate executive branch of the Government, and subversive of its constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own advantage, to swear before
ex parte committees to pretended private conversations between the President and themselves, incapable, from their nature, of being disproved; thus furnishing material for harassing him, degrading him in the eyes of the country ...
[22]
He maintained that the House of Representatives possessed no general powers to investigate him, except when sitting as an impeaching body.
When the Supreme Court has considered similar issues, it held that the power to secure "needed information ... has long been treated as an attribute of the power to legislate. ... [The power to investigate is deeply rooted in the nation's history:] It was so regarded in the British Parliament and in the colonial Legislatures before the American Revolution, and a like view has prevailed and been carried into effect in both houses of Congress and in most of the state Legislatures."
McGrain v. Daugherty, 273 U.S. 135, 161 (1927). The Supreme Court also held, "
There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress, by itself or through its committees, to investigate matters and conditions relating to
contemplated legislation."
Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 160 (1955).
The Supreme Court has also explained that Congress has not only the power, but the duty, to investigate so it can inform the public of the operations of government:
It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; and unless Congress both scrutinize these things and sift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct. The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.
[23]
