So, Trump’s already accused of violating the constitution by his own party, and this is only the primaries. So if he is elected as president, how long will it take for them to impeach him?
Trump isn’t accused of violating the Constitution; policies he has proposed are likely to be found Unconstitutional. Big difference.
As long as it takes him to commit “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” (Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution) and for the House of Representatives to agree that he has done so.
As stated by Frank’s post, you don’t impeach a President for acting unconstitutionally, only for acting illegally and there’s a difference.
Now, impeachment proceedings are ultimately up to Congress, so they can use whatever criteria for voting they like, but in general Trump can argue “I locked up all the [insert group of the month] because I have that power under [insert legal code]. I watch the news and my smart advisers said [insert words masquerading as meaningful communication]. You’re stupid for not having done it yourself.”
Impeachment charges are whatever Congress says they are.
Interesting question. I’d say a lot depends on how far Trump takes things if he wants to do something. So he takes an unconstitutional action. Then a court strikes him down. He says he’ll ignore the court ruling. Then he gets impeached and removed from office.
Everything there seems likely to me up until “ignore court ruling”. I think he’d be more likely to just quit. As a matter of fact, I think Trump would be very likely to walk away from the Presidency at the first sign of adversity.
On a side note, it’d be interesting to see who his VP would be. If Trump were impeached and marched out of office, then who would take his place?
To answer the OP, I’d think the odds are pretty good he’d be impeached reasonably quickly. Unless he managed to get the military on his side. Do you think the US could ever be called a banana republic? Surely Trump’s VP would be second banana…
I wouldn’t worry about that. The military is not interested in running the country and would be more likely to get rid of Trump than back him. And they’d only do that if a President Trump tried to order them to fire on fellow Americans.
Trump has already said his VP would be Ted Cruz. Cruz has many faults, but one way in which he’s the complete opposite of Trump is that he reveres rule of law. He’s actually fanatical about that sort of thing, if it’s possible to be fanatical about such a basic building block of civilized government. So if power did devolve to a President Cruz the immediate crisis would pass.
It’s not like Trump will pull Excalibur out of a stone and be declared President. If he manages to get elected it would indicate he has a base of popular support. And if that’s the case, Congress will adjust its sails accordingly.
Now if he gets elected, fails in the job, and his numbers fall - then the knives will come out.
We’ll need the knives to fend off the feral animals, once pets, now abandoned and scavenging for the weak and wounded. Dogs and cats, hunting together…
If Trump wins, he won’t have to worry about impeachment, because Republicans are the ones who have a hard on for impeachment, or threatening impeachment. It’s like some crazy Nixon revenge, and they would never threaten it on someone with an (R) after their name. No matter how sociopathic President Trump turns out to be, Democrats will allow him to wallow in it, and will not impeach.
In a clearcut case like ignoring a court order, impeachment would be bipartisan and swift. Besides, Trump has few friends among Republican officials. If he steps out of line, he’s gone.
Besides, don’t you think if Ted Cruz was VP that Republicans would be chomping at the bit to make him the #1 guy, at least compared to Trump? If Trump wants protection from Repulican impeachment, he needs to make Bernie Sanders his VP.
What happens if Trump is impeached and just stays put saying he’s still the Prez “you can’t fire me” etc etc
Would US Marshals forcibly remove him from the White House?
The exact means of doing that isn’t totally clear to me, but in less developed countries that’s how coups happen. The justifiable ones anyway. If Trump was to be impeached and refused to leave office, I don’t care who removes him, whether it’s US marshals or the military. As long as the end result is the VP being the President. And if a President ever did pull something like that, Congress should pass a law imposing the death penalty on any President who refuses to leave office when legally required to do so. Such an act can cause a civil war.
What happens if I take a tour of the White House, and when I get there say that I’m the president and you can’t fire me, and get Putin on the phone, I have some words for him, tell the FBI to arrest Rosie O’Donnell, what happened to the strawberries in the freezer?
If a person who isn’t the president gives orders as if he were the president, people who hear those orders don’t follow them, because the person who gave them is not the president. When someone who isn’t the president refuses to leave the White House, that person is arrested for trespassing. Whether the person pretending to be the president used to be the president or not, they aren’t the president now, and won’t be treated as if they were.
The two situations are nowhere near the same. Especially if Trumps supporters try to in some way throw doubt onto the legality of the impeachment process or the senate trial as they probably would.
A quick read of wiki shows that impeachment of a sitting president has never actually been taken to its conclusion. Nixon resigned and both Johnson and Clinton were acquitted by the senate.
Impeachment doesn’t remove a president from office, so nothing would happen. As for you statement that impeachment has never been taken to it’s conclusion, that is simply false. Impeachment is it’s own thing. Removal from office is a separate action that might or might not take place after impeachment.
I don’t see it happening. When Congress says you’re impeached, you’re impeached. How many people in the Executive branch do you think will be willing to break the law just to go down with the ship by Trump’s side?
Ok fine, but most people think of the entire process as impeachment. How about a sitting US president has never been removed from office after a senate trial. Is that better? The point I’m trying to make is its never happened so there is no precedent to compare to.
If Trump’s got enough supporters that he can just ignore an impeachment and subsequent removal from office, he’s got a strong enough base of support that he would never be impeached in the first place. He’d have a level of popularity and personal loyalty that would make him untouchable by the impeachment process: no pol would dare start the proceedings against him, because of the eventual electoral backlash from his supporters.