There is an increasing national movement to impeach President trump. In order to impeach a president of the United States, there is a requirement to prove that the president is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
How does impeachment work? Impeachment proceedings have to be brought by the House of Representatives, also known as the Congress. They have the sole power to start impeachment proceedings.
If a movement to impeach is started by the Congress, then the Senate has to sole power to conduct a trial to impeach President Trump.
The history of impeachment
To date, no U.S. president has been impeached. For example, President Nixon resigned before impeachment. President Clinton was accused by the House of Representatives of perjury and obstruction of justice. The charges to impeach were brought forward after the investigation efforts of special prosecutor Ken Starr. Congress impeached President Clinton; however, the Senate was not able to confirm the impeachment because they did not obtain the two-thirds majority vote necessary to do so.
The case for impeachment of Trump
Professor Allan J. Lichtman accurately predicted the winner of every presidential campaign since 1984, including the win by Trump. During February 2017, he published a book entitled “The Case for Impeachment” detailing how and why Trump will be impeached.
One key point made by Lichtman in his book is that President Trump has grossly violated the “emolument” clause in the U.S. Constitution. This law dates back to the foundation of America. It makes it illegal for any president to receive any payments or other things of value that are contributed by foreign governments.
Lichtman accurately points out that Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. and his ownership interest in other things that regularly receive payments from foreign governments is a clear violation by President Trump of this law.
In fact, this is the basis for three lawsuits brought forth against Trump that are currently under litigation. One of these lawsuits was filed by the Attorney Generals of Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Billionaire launches media campaign to impeach the president
Billionaire, Tom Steyer, created a very calm, yet impassioned advertisement that calls for the impeachment of President Trump. He invested $10 million in an advertising campaign to air this video. It was first aired during the program “Fox and Friends,” which is a television show that is almost always pro-Trump and it is a show that the president watches on a regular basis.
The D.C. Report
David Cay Johnston of the D.C. Report has long been working to reveal the illegal behaviors of Trump.
Johnston was the only one who was able to obtain an old tax return of Trump from 2005 that showed because Trump claimed such great financial losses from his bankrupt real estate deals he did not pay any taxes and probably did not pay any taxes thereafter for many years. The D.C. Report is a non-profit group in Washington, D.C. It is very instrumental in revealing actual information that is part of the public record, which could ultimately be used to impeach the president.
Summary
Will Trump be impeached? Not yet. However, the risk to Trump is very high, especially if the Democrats take back control of Congress during the mid-term elections to be held in November 2018. Moreover, there are certainly going to be indictments of those who worked with the president for their illegal behaviors. The criminal charges already started this week with the indictment of Paul Manafort by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.