What do impeached mean

The word impeachment can also refer to the state of being impeached. In the U. Impeaching an official is not the same as convicting them or removing them from office—to impeach is simply to formally present charges against them.

Under U. The formal charges are called articles of impeachment. If the House votes in favor of impeachment, the Senate then conducts an impeachment trial. In order for the person to be found guilty, two-thirds of the Senate must vote in favor of conviction. If found guilty, the official is removed from office and may be forbidden from holding political office again, depending on the ruling of the Senate. The word impeachment can also be used in a more general way referring to the act of calling into question , as in Your impeachment of my motives is way off-base.

It can also refer to the act of challenging or calling to account , as in The impeachment of such behavior is necessary in order to condemn it. Example: Representatives have said they will proceed with impeachment of the president if he refuses to resign. The first records of the word impeachment come from the s.

The suffix -ment is used to form nouns indicating an action or state. What are some other forms related to impeachment? What are some words that share a root or word element with impeachment? When used generally, impeachment is fairly formal.

Here we go again. The House begins a historic debate that will lead to the first-ever second impeachment of a President. What are some words that share a root or word element with impeachable? Breaking News: Senator Mitch McConnell is said to believe President Trump committed impeachable offenses, and to be pleased Democrats are moving to impeach him.

I will vote in favor of impeachment. True or False? The impeachable crime is admitted but the guilt runs too deep to die so easily. A broad bipartisan House Judiciary Committee majority found his sins to rise to the level of impeachable offenses. If he did, the Republicans might have a truly impeachable offense. Everybody lives in a land of make believe where Benghazi and Fast and Furious are somehow impeachable offenses. Sending a young woman a lewd photo is not an impeachable offense, but it is monumentally bad judgment.

The President of the United States is impeachable at any time during his continuance in office. Treason and bribery, specifically named in the Constitution as impeachable offenses, were also indictable. Initially, the founders said the president and others could be removed by impeachment and conviction for "corrupt conduct" or "malpractice or neglect of duty. The debate did not stop there because the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" left the matter of impeachable offenses open to interpretation.

Since the ratification of the Constitution in , the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors" has plagued members of Congress, lawyers, and legal scholars alike.

The framers borrowed the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" from British law, wherein it referred to crimes by public officials against the government.

In practical terms, as Representative Gerald Ford said in , "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution states that the House of Representatives has the sole power to impeach.

The House, however, does not have the power to remove an impeached individual. That duty goes to the Senate, which holds a trial and decides whether to convict and remove or acquit. Impeachment begins when the House adopts a resolution calling for an investigation by a House committee into charges against the official in question.

The committee may recommend impeachment or dismissal. The House then votes, by simple majority, to approve or dismiss articles of impeachment. Following approval, the House appoints managers to conduct the impeachment trial in the Senate.

The House then passes a resolution informing the Senate about the articles of impeachment and the names of the House managers who will bring the case before the Senate. When the Senate receives the resolution, that body advises the House when it will receive the managers and begin the impeachment trial. The Senate becomes the court with the president of the Senate presiding, except when the person impeached is the president, in which case, the presiding officer is the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

To convict and remove an impeached individual from office requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. The penalty for impeachment is a trial in the Senate. Because impeachment is the same as an indictment, there is no other penalty, except perhaps to one's reputation.

Impeachment, as discussed above, only requires a simple affirmative majority in the House of Representatives. The Constitution requires a two-thirds affirmative vote in the Senate to convict an impeached person. The penalty for conviction is removal from office. The Senate also has the option, by simple majority vote, to disqualify the official from holding public office in the future.

There is no appeal to impeachment or conviction because it involves a political rather than criminal question. Of the 20 federal impeachment proceedings since , 10 have occurred in the past years. Impeached officials included 15 federal judges, three presidents, one senator, and a cabinet secretary the secretary of war.

These impeachments resulted in seven acquittals, eight convictions all judges and they were removed from office , three dismissals, and one resignation with no further action. As discussed earlier, only three U. President Richard Nixon was never impeached, although he was threatened with impeachment over the Watergate scandal of Word of the Day goodwill.

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