Will Congress Impeach Donald Trump Now That He Is Officially President? How Does The Impeachment Process Work?

Calls for Congress to impeach Donald Trump, now that he is the 45th president of the United States, are starting to get traction. The website ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.Org was established right around the same time that information on climate change and the LGBT community was deleted from the official White House website.

According to the website, grounds to impeach Trump exist based on the conflict of interest that Trump now has with his business and assets across the globe. According to the Independent, ethics experts say that Trump needs to separate from his business assets by starting a blind trust.

Experts also claim that Trump’s hotels overseas constitutes a breach of the Foreign Emoluments Clause that is in the Constitution. This clause states that the president of the United States is forbidden from taking any type of gift from a foreign power. These gifts could be seen as a way for a foreign government to buy influence from the president. In regards to Donald Trump, his hotel empire would be where he would be in violation of this area of the Constitution. Members from a foreign government could stay at one of Trump’s hotels which would mean they would be giving money to Trump.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat Congressman from Maryland, is already planning on starting the process to impeach President Trump, according to Alternet.

“Right now it looks pretty obvious that he’s on a collision course with the Emoluments Clause. He has refused to divest himself of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of business interests he has around the world doing business with foreign governments.”

How Does The Impeachment Process Work?

The process to impeach begins in the House of Representatives. In the House, a single member has the power to lay out the offenses that would constitute impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee must then decide on whether to move forward from this point. If it is decided to move forward, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee requests that an investigation begin.

The Judiciary Committee then releases a resolution to the entire House of Representatives that explains why impeachment proceedings are being done. A vote takes place in the House. It only takes 218 votes, a simple majority, for the House to impeach. The execution of the impeachment trial takes place in the Senate.

During the trial phase of the impeachment process, members from the House of Representatives are selected to act as prosecutors. The judge presiding over the hearing is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Every member of the Senate takes on the role of jurors. After the trial is completed, members of the Senate vote on whether to impeach. It takes 66 votes in the Senate to impeach.

Out of the 44 (Grover Cleveland was elected twice to two different terms) men who have been president of the United States, four of them had to deal with, or were going to have to deal with impeachment proceedings. Many people think that impeachment means removed from office. Its meaning is essentially what an indictment is. It is a recommendation for a trial.

• Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House due to his decision making following the Civil War. The Senate was unable to generate the number of votes needed to remove Johnson from office.
• John Tyler’s impeachment process never garnered enough support to make it out of the House of Representatives.
• Richard Nixon resigned from office before impeachment would have surely taken place.
• Bill Clinton was impeached due to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The Senate was not able to come up with the needed votes to remove Clinton from office.

What are the odds that Congress will impeach Donald Trump? The Houston Press has reported on the actual betting odds.

• Ladbrokes Coral has the current odds at 50-50 that Trump would not last four years.
• Paddy Power has the odds at 4-1 that Trump will be impeached.
• CNBC has odds of 5-2 that Trump will not finish out his first term.

Do you think Congress will attempt to impeach Donald Trump?

[Featured Image By Evan Vucci/AP Photo]