Legislative · how it works

How impeachment works

An accusation in one chamber, a trial in the other, and a two-thirds wall that has held against every President ever tried. Impeachment is the Constitution's emergency brake, built to be hard to pull.

Majority

of the House to impeach

2/3

of senators present to convict

officials ever removed, all of them judges

Presidents removed, three impeached, all acquitted

Impeachment is the removal process for Presidents, Vice Presidents, judges, and other 'civil Officers', not a criminal proceeding, and not reserved for crimes alone. The House accuses; the Senate judges; and the penalty stops at the office door: removal, and at most disqualification. Everything else stays with the ordinary courts.

Article II, Section 4

The grounds

'Treason, briberyGiving or taking something of value in exchange for an official act. One of the two offenses the Constitution names by name as grounds for impeachment.Read the full definition (opens a new tab), or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.' The first two are defined; the third is deliberately not, the founders borrowed it from English practice to cover grave abuses of office, whether or not they are indictable crimes. In practice its meaning is decided politically, case by case, by the House and Senate themselves.

Who can be impeached: the President, VP, and 'civil Officers', judges and executive officers. Members of Congress cannot (settled in 1799); each chamberOne of the two houses of a legislature. Congress has two: the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill must pass both, in identical text.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) instead expels its own by supermajorityAny threshold above half: three-fifths for Senate cloture, two-thirds to override a veto or convict on impeachment, three-fourths of states to ratify an amendment.Read the full definition (opens a new tab).

Source: Constitution Annotated, Impeachable Offenses

House committees

The House investigates

Impeachment begins as an inquiry, historically in the Judiciary Committee, sometimes led by other committees or a task force. Hearings, subpoenas, and depositions build the record; the committee then votes on whether to recommend articles of impeachment, the formal charges, to the full House.

A majority of the House

The House impeaches

The full House debates and votes each article separately; a majorityMore than half. A plurality is only the largest share, which can be far less than half when more than two candidates run.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) on any article impeaches. The officer is now impeached, accused, not removed, and keeps serving. The House then appoints managers, members who will prosecute the case across the Capitol.

Articles adoptedThe case moves to the Senate for trial.

Articles failThe inquiry ends; nothing else happens.

Source: History.House.gov, Impeachment

The Senate, under oath

The Senate tries

Senators swear a special oath to do 'impartial justice' and sit as the court. House managers prosecute; the officer's counsel defends; the Senate sets its own trial rules and votes on evidence and witnesses. When a President is on trial, the Chief JusticeThe head of the Supreme Court and of the federal judiciary. One vote of nine on cases, but control of the conference and of who writes the majority opinion.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) presides, so the Vice PresidentFirst in the line of succession, President of the Senate with a tie-breaking vote, and whatever else the President delegates. The job's power is almost entirely informal.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) never referees their own promotion.

The Supreme CourtThe only court the Constitution itself creates. Nine Justices, life tenure, and near-total control over which cases they hear.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) has held trial procedure is the Senate's alone to decide (Nixon v. United States, 1993, a judge's challenge, not the President's), so there is no appeal from how the Senate runs it.

Source: U.S. Senate, About Impeachment

Two-thirds of senators present

The verdict

Each article gets a separate vote, and conviction on any one requires two-thirds of senators present. That wall is the process's defining fact: it has held in every presidential trial, Andrew Johnson survived by one vote in 1868, and has been breached only for judges.

ConvictedRemoval from office is automatic and immediate.

AcquittedThe officer keeps serving. All three impeached Presidents were acquitted.

The Senate, then the ordinary courts

Judgment, and its limits

Conviction removes, full stop. A separate, simple-majority vote can add disqualification from future federal office, the Senate has done it three times. And that is the ceiling: no prison, no fine. civil caseA lawsuit between parties over rights, money, or conduct, decided by a preponderance of the evidence. A criminal case is the government prosecuting an offense.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) runs on its own track, an impeached or removed officer 'shall nevertheless be liable' to ordinary prosecution, and the President's clemencyThe President's power to forgive or reduce federal punishment: a pardon erases the conviction's penalties, a commutation shortens the sentence, a reprieve delays it.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) power cannot touch impeachment itself.

Source: U.S. Senate, Impeachment (complete list of trials)

Sources for this walkthrough

Stage-specific sources are cited on their stages above.

See it in the app

This is a plain-language walkthrough for civic education, not legal advice. Procedure has exceptions this page simplifies; the official sources above control.