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POLITICS

Afzettingsprocedure VS

By Duncan Mil

November 1, 2019 - De Amerikaanse grondwet staat het Congres toe een president af te zetten als genoeg senatoren zeggen dat hij of zij “verraad, omkoping, of een andere zware misdaad of overtreding”pleegt.

Article Two, Section 4 of the Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to impeach a federal official, including the president.

On October 31 the House voted to approve and proceed with its impeachment inquiry. The resolution, passed on a mostly party-line 232-196 vote, sends a clear signal that a vote to impeach President Donald Trump, and a trial in the Senate, is all but inevitable.

A two-thirds majority in the Senate is required to convict and remove a president from office -- which has never successfully happened.

While the Constitution sets out that if the House impeaches an official, the next step is for the Senate to hold a trial, there is no precise enforcement mechanism.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican and Senate majority leader, could refuse to convene an impeachment trial. In 2016, McConnell refused to permit a confirmation hearing and vote on President Barak Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, to the Supreme Court.

Article One of the Constitution stipulates that the Chief Justice of Supreme Court -- currently John Roberts -- should preside over any Senate trial.

Walter Dellinger, a Duke University law professor and a former acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration, told the New York Times that the Republican majority in the Senate could vote to immediately dismiss the case without any consideration of the evidence if it wanted.

Trump becomes just the fourth president to be subject to a formal impeachment effort. Two of them, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, were impeached in the House but weren’t convicted in the Senate. Richard Nixon, facing likely conviction, resigned before the House could vote to approve articles of impeachment.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 01/11/2019; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Associated Press
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