US Congressional Democrats plan to introduce articles on Monday to impeach President Donald Trump for an unprecedented second time after his supporters, inflamed by his false claims of election fraud and his urgings to march on Congress, stormed the US Capitol.
The following is a primer on what a second impeachment proceeding of Trump would look like.
So Trump can be impeached again?
Yes. No president has ever been impeached twice, but legal experts said it is clearly constitutional for Congress to do so.
Trump was previously impeached by the Democratic-led US House of Representatives in December 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate then-Democratic contender and now President-elect Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Trump was acquitted by the Republican-led Senate in February 2020.
How does impeachment work?
A misconception about impeachment is that it refers to the removal of a president from office. In fact, impeachment refers only to the House, the lower chamber of Congress, bringing charges that a president engaged in a “high crime or misdemeanour” - similar to an indictment in a criminal case.
If a simple majority of the House’s 435 members approves bringing charges, known as “articles of impeachment,” the process moves to the Senate, the upper chamber, which has a trial. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate to convict and remove a president.
Only a simple majority of the Senate is needed to disqualify Trump from holding future office, however. Legal experts said that lower standard means Democrats, who will take control of the Senate later in January, have a realistic chance of barring Trump from running for president in 2024 — a possibility he has discussed.
One complication with that plan, however, is that under Senate precedent a vote on disqualification is only held after a vote on whether to convict and remove from office.
Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said he believed the Senate would have the authority to vote only on future disqualification. This scenario becomes more likely if Trump's impeachment trial is still pending on Jan. 20, when his presidency ends, Campos said.
How quickly could Trump be impeached and removed from office?
Impeachment experts said that, in theory, it could be done very quickly, within days even, because both chambers have wide latitude to set the rules as they see it. But the current rules, which could be revisited, would make it difficult to complete the process in less than a week, Campos said.
"This can be done fast," said Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown University.
"One of the defining features of impeachment is that there is no due process requirement, no oversight from the court," he said.
What “high crime and misdemeanour” could Trump be accused of?
Frank Bowman, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Missouri, said that Trump “arguably fomented sedition,” or an attempted overthrowing of the US government.
But Bowman said Trump could also be impeached for a more general offence: disloyalty to the US Constitution and failing to uphold his oath of office. Congress has discretion in defining a high crime and misdemeanour and is not limited to actual criminal offences.
“The essential offence would be one against the Constitution - one of essentially trying to undermine the lawful results of a lawfully conducted election,” Bowman said.