# Can Trump fire Pence ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765 "2017-02-13T17:48:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/21 "2017-02-16T14:53:46Z")
[tin foil hat] So an old family friend told me that the reason Nixon was impeached and would be convicted was that after Agnew resigned the Rockefeller family wanted Nelson as VP. Nixon refused and appointed Ford as VP. The Rockefellers get Nixon out and Ford becomes President and guess who the new VP is. [/tin foil hat] Anyone else ever hear that CT? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/22 "2017-02-16T14:58:28Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > It’s not the least bit strange. > > The odd exception doesn’t invalidate the rule, regardless of how recent it was. Yes, it does. In this case: A can’t do B. A just did B, therefor A can do B. Rule (A can’t do B) invalidated. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/23 "2017-02-16T15:41:19Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > [tin foil hat] > So an old family friend told me that the reason Nixon was impeached and would be convicted was that after Agnew resigned the Rockefeller family wanted Nelson as VP. Nixon refused and appointed Ford as VP. The Rockefellers get Nixon out and Ford becomes President and guess who the new VP is. > [/tin foil hat] > Anyone else ever hear that CT? **Moderator Note** That’s rather irrelevant to the OP. Let’s not sidetrack the thread with discussion of conspiracy theories. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/24 "2017-02-16T15:56:40Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > By the time Nixon resigned, impeachment was all but a certainty. And when impeached, he would have been found guilty. Either way, he would have been out of office. Nixon wasn’t stupid; he knew he was licked. I don’t know if that follows. Nixon couldn’t be impeached without a certain amount of Republican support. As it happens there was enough Republican support for his impeachment, but that’s under the system that allowed Ford to succeed him. Question is whether there would have been enough Republican support for his impeachment had they known that this would result in a Democrat becoming president. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/25 "2017-02-16T16:18:32Z")
It isn’t too hard to imagine a situation arising where there becomes a significant rift between the president and VP. One where the VP has no interest at all in resigning. Whilst Trump walking in on Pence in bed with Melania is a bit of stretch, it isn’t too hard to imagine things going badly wrong politically, and legally, for a POTUS, and a VP who hails from a different faction of the party becoming active in impeachment manoeuvring. In most political systems it is common for the VP (or equivalent) to be banished (often to return in triumph later). But here, the POTUS actually has no power at all to remove someone who might otherwise be directly lining up to take his job. More the subject for works of fiction, but an interesting reality. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/26 "2017-02-16T16:33:08Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > In most political systems it is common for the VP (or equivalent) to be banished (often to return in triumph later). Here in Panama the previous president, Martinelli, won election with a coalition with another party, led by Varela who became Vice President. A couple years into his term Martinelli dissolved the coalition and fired Varela and other members of his party from most of his roles in the government, but he remained as VP (since he had been elected to that position). In the most recent election, Varela surprisingly won the presidency over Martinelli’s hand-picked successor. Now Martinelli is on the run in the US from corruption charges. 😃 (This happens almost every election in Panama, since there are three main parties, none of which usually can get a majority on their own. Two parties will form a coalition and win the election, then have a falling out. The leading party will then try to go it alone in the next election and be defeated. The party in power has never won a presidential election since Noriega.) ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/27 "2017-02-16T22:26:01Z")
> [@Debillw3](#): > > That being said, a strong number of cases of DC firings are just resignation “requests”. I think you’ve got the terminology backwards…most DC resignations are actually firings. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/28 "2017-02-17T17:49:22Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > The President certainly can fire a Cabinet secretary. President Johnson did that with the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. It triggered his impeachment, which he survived. His basic point was the the President had the right to choose his closest advisors, and that included the power to fire them. This is correct as far as it goes. A fuller account is that Johnson (Andrew Johnson, who was Lincoln’s VP) was a Democrat chosen as part of fusion ticket. The Republicans didn’t like him and passed (and repassed over his veto) something called the Tenure of Office act that forbade the president from firing a cabinet secretary without the approval of the senate. The act is surely unconstitutional, but even if valid, the only penalty can be impeachment. So he was impeached. Conviction failed by just one vote. My HS civics teacher speculated that, had he been convicted and removed from office, then the US might have evolved towards a parliamentary system, since "High crimes and misdemeanors means whatever a majority of HR wants it to mean. I don’t think this speculation was correct since it still would always require a 2/3 vote of the senate and this scarcely seems credible. But the correct answer to the OP is simply: no. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/29 "2017-02-17T18:05:25Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I don’t know if that follows. > > Nixon couldn’t be impeached without a certain amount of Republican support. As it happens there was enough Republican support for his impeachment, but that’s under the system that allowed Ford to succeed him. Question is whether there would have been enough Republican support for his impeachment had they known that this would result in a Democrat becoming president. The Democrats had a solid majority in both houses of Congress. And importantly, the Republican Party had a lot of liberals in 1974. I’m pretty certain Jack Javits, Clifford Case, Lowell Weicker, Richard Schweiker and other liberal Republicans would have voted to remove Nixon from office. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/30 "2017-02-17T18:12:50Z")
Democrats had 56 Senate seats at the time, and needed 11 more. I don’t know if you can make that much of the liberal Republicans. At that time, Republicans and Democrats were not split along liberal/conservative lines to nearly the extent that they were today. (Nixon himself was not all that conservative, as I understand it.) And if you’re going to assume that liberals automatically defect to the Democrats and turn the presidency over to them (a shaky assumption, IMHO), then you should consider that there were also a lot of conservative Democrats in the Senate at that time (mostly from Southern states). ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765/31 "2017-02-17T18:37:58Z")
While only Congress can remove the Vice President, the President can prevent the VP from doing anything except preside over the Senate. White House access, security clearances, commission assignments, etc are all at the President’s prerogative. If the VP wants to have power, they have to have the President’s approval. > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > This is correct as far as it goes. A fuller account is that Johnson (Andrew Johnson, who was Lincoln’s VP) was a Democrat chosen as part of fusion ticket. The Republicans didn’t like him and passed (and repassed over his veto) something called the Tenure of Office act that forbade the president from firing a cabinet secretary without the approval of the senate. The act is surely unconstitutional, but even if valid, the only penalty can be impeachment. So he was impeached. Conviction failed by just one vote. My HS civics teacher speculated that, had he been convicted and removed from office, then the US might have evolved towards a parliamentary system, since "High crimes and misdemeanors means whatever a majority of HR wants it to mean. I don’t think this speculation was correct since it still would always require a 2/3 vote of the senate and this scarcely seems credible. As I’m fond of noting: it takes fewer votes to impeach and remove from office the President than it does to override their veto. It’s only tradition and potential voter backlash that prevents impeachment and removal from being less common that veto overrides; there’s no structural reason it should be so. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trump-fire-pence/779765.md?page=1)