Impeachment and Removal

Impeachment is step one of a two-step process, and it only means charged, not convicted. The Constitution splits the job between the two chambers of Congress on purpose. The House of Representatives investigates, usually starting in a committee, drafts articles of impeachment listing the alleged offenses, and then votes. If a simple majority of the House, 218 of 435 members, votes yes on at least one article, the president is impeached. That word alone changes nothing about who holds office.

The case then moves to the Senate, which holds a trial. The House sends managers to argue the case, the president can mount a defense, and the Chief Justice presides when it is a presidential trial. Senators act as the jury. Conviction, and therefore removal, requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate, 67 of 100 members if all are present and voting. That high bar is deliberate: the founders wanted removal to require broad, cross-party agreement, not just the will of whichever party controls the chamber.

This splits accountability the same way the rest of Article I and II separate powers: one body accuses, a different body, with a different mode of election and a different sense of institutional caution, judges. It is also why impeachment connects to checks and balances more broadly. Congress can discipline a president without the courts or the voters, but only if it clears two separate, difficult thresholds, which is exactly why impeachment happens more often than removal.