President Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry has been launched

President Trumps Impeachment Inquiry has been launched

Cole Marullo, Reporter

  On September 24th House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a formal impeachment inquiry for President Donald Trump. Trump only has a couple months until his first term is over but if the impeachment goes through he will get removed before his term ends not allowing President Trump to run for a second term. 

The first ever U.S. president that was impeached was Andrew Johnson. His Impeachment process was the fastest and was charged with 11 articles of impeachment on March 2, 1868. According to the U.S. Senate the trail took several months. Johnson also did not attend because he was advised to not showup by a lawyer. On may 16th 1868 the Senate voted on three articles related to Johnson’s impeachment charges. A 2/3 majority was needed for a conviction which was not reached with in total 35 senators that voted to convict the president and 19 senators voted to not. It only took a total of three months long for the impeachment process to start and end.

Then following with Bill Clinton who got impeached in 1999. Bill Clinton was impeached because of his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky who was an intern for the White House at the time. After a couple of months he finally came out and said that it was true “ Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. ”  with this being proven on Jan 7, 1999 the trail lasted five weeks total until his acquittal on Feb. 12, 1999 on a charge of lying to a grand jury.

What the impeachment does is if Congress thinks the president is not fit to serve and should be removed they could remove the president from office. But it was just announced so it will take time and it won’t begin immediately. Before impeachment the House has to vote on the articles of impeachment first. Then a majority of the House of Representatives which equals up to a total of 218 votes. But, a formal impeachment inquiry can take place months before the proceeding begins. President Nixon resigned after impeachment articles were approved by the House Judiciary Committee and before the House voted on the impeachment charges. Then in order to remove the president the Senate must vote with ⅔ majority vote in favor. So as of now it is possible to impeach President Trump but it will be hard and they don’t have too much time to do it.