Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Sunday predicted that Democrats will impeach Trump for a third time between his two presidencies if they take control of the House after the November midterm elections.
Jordan suggested in an interview on “Cats Roundtable,” the WABC 770 AM radio show hosted by John Catsimatidis, that Democrats will take the legislative branch’s oversight capability “and turn it into a weaponization of government.”
“They say they’re not going to, but we know they will –– they’ll do a third impeachment of President Trump,” Jordan told the host. “But that’s just part of it. They’re going to investigate the first family, they’re going to investigate cabinet secretaries.”
Does impeachment achieve anything, or have any consequences at all? Not really sure what the point is, seems to have no effect
Impeachment in the House is the first step to having a standing President removed from office. The second step (after the required first) is for the Senate to hold a trial. If 2/3rds of the Senators vote to convict, the President is removed.
What has occurred to trump so far is Step #1 two times without Step #2 being executed.
I would have hoped that people would have looked any of this up by now. It’s trivial to do so.
But to save you even that much efffort: Impeachments happens in the House. It is a vote, and that means it largely happens along party lines. If sufficient votes are cast in the House to impeach, it goes to the Senate to vote for removal, which requires a two-thirds majority. It is extremely unlikely to happen, and so far when he was impeached, he was not removed by the Senate.
Does it do anything? Yes and no. It is a political process, not a criminal/judicial one, so some people can argue that it’s just politics, but also nobody has been impeached twice before. It’s also a matter of norms, so it is quite possible that Republicans will now impeach any Democrat president from here until our political system fails. So while impeachment definitely meant something in the past (although arguably even with Clinton’s impeachment, the impeachment itself was a political witch hunt), it is certainly meaning less and less as time goes by. It SHOULD mean something, but then again we shouldn’t be dealing with fascism, but here we are.
Worst take of the day