According to the BBC website on January 14, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the impeachment bill against Trump on the 13th, making Trump the first president in American history to be impeached twice.
Several Republican congressmen joined the Democratic Party and voted in favor of the impeachment clause against Trump.
Will Trump be ousted early?
Trump’s presidency is still a few days away. At present, it seems likely that he will remain in office until President-designate Biden takes over.
Next, the Senate will consider the impeachment bill.
The Senate is expected to debate after Biden is sworn in on January 20.
At that time, the new Congress will be sworn in, and Democrats will dominate the Senate.
Democrats won two seats in the Georgia Senate by-election, with 50 seats each in the Senate.
Vice President-designate Kamala Harris will hold the balance-breaking vote.
What are the chances of Trump being found guilty?
The Democratic Party has a small margin in the new Congress, but just over half of the votes is not enough.
The U.S. Constitution stipulates that if the president is to be removed from office, more than two-thirds of the members of the Senate need to agree to his guilt, that is, 17 Republicans need to defect before Trump can be found guilty.
Last week’s congressional violence prompted many Republicans to distance themselves from Trump.
As many as 20 Republican senators are open to Trump’s conviction, according to the New York Times.
However, it is still unknown what will happen to their attitude when the Senate hears.
The position of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is crucial.
It needs to be clarified that whether the Senate has convicted or not only determines whether the president should be removed from office, not a crime as defined by criminal law.
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, said in an interview with the Washington Post that impeachment is basically a process of deciding whether someone should be dismissed, but only used for the president.
What does it mean if Trump is found guilty after leaving office?
As a former president, Trump can still be impeached.
This will leave a stain on his political career and block his way to run for president or hold public office again.
Recently, there have been rumors that Trump is preparing to make a comeback in the 2024 election.
But for Biden’s new administration, timing is a bit awkward.
When the new government aggressively implements the 100-day New Deal, public opinion may still focus on the impeachment bill of outgoing President Trump.
The political tearing in the United States will further deepen, restricting Biden’s governance space in the early days of his tenure.
Can Trump pardon himself?
Frankly speaking: We don’t know.
There has never been a self-pardonment by the President of the United States, and the provisions of the U.S. Constitution on the power of pardon are very brief and broadly defined.
After leaving office, Trump will return to civilian status.
After losing presidential privileges, he may become a defendant in various civil and criminal proceedings.
At present, Trump and related agencies are facing at least six lawsuits, of which one of the criminal investigations against Trump companies in New York State is the most serious.
The media speculated that he would pardon himself before leaving office.
Some legal experts said that the president did not have the power to pardon himself.
They quoted a document issued by the U.S. Department of Justice before the resignation of former U.S. President Nixon in connection with the “Watergate incident”, which said that Nixon has no right to self-pardon on the basis of the basic rule that no one can adjudicate cases involving him.
However, some experts said that the U.S. Constitution did not make it clear that the president did not have the right to self-pardnesty.
