Senate 100 Senators play the role of jury members in ordinary trials, and can only listen to the arguments of the prosecution and the defense and the testimony of relevant witnesses, and are not allowed to speak during the trial. If you have any questions or motions, you can only put them to the Chief Justice in writing. The prosecution is the House of Representatives and the defense is the White House. After the trial begins, both parties will make a statement of 1 hour, and then call relevant witnesses to testify. After the trial, the Chief Justice asked each senator by name in alphabetical order, and the senator could only answer "guilty" or "not guilty". If two-thirds of the senators, that is, 67 people, answer "guilty" to any impeachment, the president will be impeached and the vice president will take over as president. Otherwise, the president is innocent and can continue to complete his term. The impeached person shall not hold any public office for life.
In American history, Congress used impeachment procedure twice, but only once.
The 1 president is andrew johnson, and the17th president (term 1865- 1869). Because President Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson succeeded him. Johnson was born in poverty and had no formal school education. On 19, he married Eliza McAdoo. His wife teaches him culture. After he became president, activists and Republicans passed the presidential authority bill in Congress, which restricted the president's power to recall others. However, in 1868, he dismissed the defense minister who was closely related to the party, and the House of Representatives impeached him for "serious crimes and improper behavior". 1868, because of the difference of one vote, the Senate was not convicted and dismissed.
Richard Nixon (term 1969- 1974) was involved in the Watergate scandal during the 1972 election. Three reasons why the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives passed the impeachment of President Nixon. Nixon decided by 1977 before the House of Representatives voted on the reasons for impeachment. Ford succeeded the president and granted him Amnesty.
Bill Clinton was the president of 1993. 1998 12 19, the U.S. house of representatives held a plenary meeting and passed by a simple majority two reasons for impeaching president Clinton: "perjury" and "obstruction of justice" in related scandals. Clinton became the second president to be impeached in American history. After more than five months of impeachment proceedings, the Senate and the House of Representatives spent at least $40 million. In the end, the Senate rejected two impeachment clauses proposed by the House of Representatives, thus putting an end to this "trial of the century".
According to the relevant regulations, before the impeachment trial begins, the Senate can still terminate the impeachment procedure by a simple majority vote or pass a motion of "public reprimand" to save the president from impeachment.
According to the US Constitution, if the Senate approves the reasons for impeaching the president, the impeached president will not only be dismissed, but also be banned from running for federal office and may be subject to criminal prosecution. The deposed president will lose the annual pension of15-180,000 dollars, and will not get the office expenses paid by Congress for the president who stepped down after his term expires.
Interestingly, the impeachment procedure and constitutional basis faced by President Clinton were drawn up by Mrs. Clinton 24 years ago. 1974 65438+1At the beginning of October, Hillary Clinton, who just graduated, became the best young lawyer in the case of impeaching President Nixon. At that time, she was not married, and her boyfriend Clinton was running for Congress in Arkansas. On August 9 of the same year, the excellent work of Hillary and all the investigators finally pulled President Nixon down. A week later, Hillary Clinton, full of victory, drove south to marry Clinton. But she didn't know that 24 years later, her own impeachment procedure and legal basis were used on her husband. In a word, parliament has the right to impeach the president. The Senate is just a jury, voting on the president's trial.