https://www.businessinsider.sg/president-trump-impeachment-odds-how-likely-2017-8/?r=US&IR=T
More Americans are calling for Trump’s impeachment than ever — here’s how that would play out
Sonam Sheth, Business Insider US
August 18, 2017
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Donald Trump. Mark Wilson/ Getty Images
A new poll by PRRI released Thursday reveals rising support for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, with four in 10 Americans hoping to see the president removed from office.
That number is larger than it was six months ago, according to the poll.
The poll followed widespread outrage for Trump’s response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where an apparent white supremacist plowed a car into counter protesters, killing one woman.
In the wake of the press conference, #ImpeachTrump became a top trending topic on Twitter this week.
Here’s how impeachment would work:
What does it mean to be impeached?
An impeachment is essentially a formal indictment of a government official. Being impeached does not remove an official from office – rather, it means formal charges are being brought against them.
Two US presidents have been impeached: Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson.
Clinton was impeached in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice – he was accused of lying under oath about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He eventually was acquitted.
Johnson was impeached in 1868 on the primary charge of violating the Tenure of Office Act by removing Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton and trying to replace him with Lorenzo Thomas. Johnson was also acquitted.
President Richard Nixon resigned before impeachment proceedings could begin.
What charges can the president be impeached on?
At the federal level, the president, vice president, and “all civil officers of the United States” can be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” according to Article II of the US Constitution.
While all felonies are impeachable, the Supreme Court has never formally ruled on what constitutes an impeachable offense.
“After Watergate, many people said that an impeachable offense is whatever the House and Senate think it is,” Robert Deitz, a former top counsel for the National Security Agency and CIA, told Business Insider. “So I could imagine people saying: ‘Look, I don’t give a damn whether what [the president] did is felonious or not. But the comment or conduct itself has brought disgrace upon the White House, and therefore we think [the president] should be impeached for that.'”
Keith Whittington, an expert on presidential impeachment and a professor of politics at Princeton University, said: “It may be that he’s acting completely within his legal authority and yet still has abused his office in ways that might rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
“But that would have to be something that would need to be explored through congressional hearings,” he said.
Hillary and Bill Clinton. Thomson Reuters How does the impeachment process work?
In the case of a presidential impeachment, the onus is on Congress to bring a charge.
The House of Representatives drafts an article of impeachment, while the Senate holds the trial.
Any representative can initiate the presidential impeachment process.
The House Judiciary Committee typically reviews resolutions calling for the impeachment of a person, while the Rules Committee presides over resolutions calling for investigations into whether certain conduct is impeachable. It sends that resolution to the Judiciary Committee if it feels the conduct is objectionable.
The Judiciary Committee ultimately decides whether there are grounds for impeachment. If a majority of its members agree, the committee drafts a formal article of impeachment, which lays out a charge being brought against an official. That article is then brought and debated before the full House.
The House can consider each article individually or look at the resolution as a whole. If a simple majority votes to impeach based on any article or the full resolution, the impeachment goes to the Senate.
The Senate holds the trial for the charges. Typically, the vice president oversees Senate trials, but in a presidential impeachment, the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides.
The trial unfolds in the same way a criminal trial would in a courtroom. Representatives act as the prosecutors, while the official is defended by an attorney or attorneys of their choosing.
The Senate then deliberates in private, the way a jury does. For an official to be removed from office, two-thirds of senators must vote to convict them.
If that official is convicted, they are immediately removed from office and may be prohibited from holding office in the future. A conviction also opens the door for a possible a criminal prosecution.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/11/politics/poll-of-the-week-trump-nixon/index.html
Poll: Trump is as strongly disliked now as Nixon was before he resigned
Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN
Updated 1959 GMT (0359 HKT) August 12, 2018
Coons on Trump attorney's claim: It's Nixonian
Hillary Clinton invokes Nixon in grad speech
(CNN)First things first: The theme song of the week is Gotcha by Tom Scott from the television show "Starsky and Hutch."
Poll of the week: A new Marist College poll finds that 20% of Americans rate President Donald Trump's job performance as excellent, 20% as pretty good, 13% as only fair and 45% as poor.
There is, not surprisingly, a large gap between how members of the two parties view Trump. Although only 2% of Democrats say Trump is doing an excellent job, 49% of Republicans do. Democrats are far more likely to give a poor rating at 80% compared to 6% of Republicans.
What's the big idea: Trump has, throughout his first term, maintained a low but fairly steady approval rating. He's also had a high disapproval rating. Because Trump's ratings have remained in stasis relative to other presidents, a number have "caught up" to Trump's unpopularity at this point in their presidency. Put another way: Trump is no longer clearly the least popular president at this point in his presidency.
What still makes Trump unique though is the amount of intensity his detractors have for him. You might say many strongly dislike him. The excellent, pretty good, only fair and poor scale allows us to get at that because it's been asked for every president since President John Kennedy.
Trump is as strongly disliked as President Richard Nixon was when he resigned the presidency 44 years ago this week. Back then, 45% of people said Nixon was doing a poor job as president in a Harris poll.
Among Democrats, the intensity of the dislike toward Trump is even deeper today than it was against Nixon back in 1974. Back in 1974, 70% of those who said they voted for Democrat George McGovern in 1972 (37% of the sample) gave Nixon a poor rating. That's 10 percentage points below the 80% of Democrats (35% of the Marist sample) who give Trump a poor rating today.
What's so interesting is that even though a majority of people didn't strongly dislike Nixon, it's not like they wanted to stay him in office. The Harris poll back in 1974 found that 56% of Americans wanted him impeached and removed from office compared with only 34% who didn't want that to happen. Among McGovern voters, it was 83%. Clearly, Americans didn't like Nixon, but it didn't boil over into strong dislike in the same way it does with Trump.
The intensity factor goes both ways with Trump, though. While as many Americans strongly dislike Trump today as they did Nixon back in 1974, a lot more love Trump today than loved Nixon in 1974. Just 7% of Americans said that Nixon was doing an excellent job in the last Harris poll taken before he left office. That's far lower than the 20% who give Trump an excellent rating now.
The love for Trump now among Republicans is also considerably greater than it was for Nixon in 1974. Among those who were going to vote for a Republican for Congress in 1974 and had voted in 1972 (26% of the sample), only 20% gave Nixon an excellent rating. That's far less than the 49% of Republicans (27% of the sample) who give Trump an excellent rating today.
The love and dislike Trump elicits has proven to be a positive and a negative for him. It's been a positive because so few Republican lawmakers have been willing to abandon him given they feel he is beloved by the base. Additionally, it has helped Trump from falling too far below an overall approval rating of 40%.
The number of Americans who hold strong negative feelings towards Trump is, however, significantly greater than the number who hold strong positive feelings.
In fact, it's record breaking how many give Trump a poor rating this early in his presidency.
President Ronald Reagan, for example, had a higher combined "only fair" and poor in an August 1982 Harris poll than Trump currently has. In 1982, however, only 26% rated Reagan's job performance as poor. That's far below Trump's current 45%.
Like Reagan did in 1982, President Bill Clinton had a higher combined "only fair" and poor rating than Trump in a late July 1994 Harris poll. His poor rating though was just 24%.
Or how about one of Trump's favorite punching bags: President Barack Obama. A June 2010 Pew Research Center poll found that 56% of Americans thought he was doing an "only fair" or poor job. His poor job rating was similar to both Clinton's and Reagan's at 27%.
All of these presidents saw major midterm losses for their party. There's no reason to believe Trump's Republican Party won't suffer as much if not moreso.
The intensity of the disapproval for Trump has translated to a significant enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans in midterm polling and special elections. It could drive Democrats to their greatest House seat gain in a midterm since the last time a Republican president had such a high poor rating in that midterm year. That of course was in 1974.
More Americans are calling for Trump’s impeachment than ever — here’s how that would play out
Sonam Sheth, Business Insider US
August 18, 2017
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Share to WhatsApp
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A new poll by PRRI released Thursday reveals rising support for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, with four in 10 Americans hoping to see the president removed from office.
That number is larger than it was six months ago, according to the poll.
The poll followed widespread outrage for Trump’s response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where an apparent white supremacist plowed a car into counter protesters, killing one woman.
Trump made multiple statements after the violence, at first blaming “many sides” Saturday, before issuing an explicit condemnation of white nationalists and neo-Nazis on Monday. During a Tuesday press conference, Trump reverted back to blaming both sides.
“You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” Trump said Tuesday. “Nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it.”In the wake of the press conference, #ImpeachTrump became a top trending topic on Twitter this week.
Here’s how impeachment would work:
What does it mean to be impeached?
An impeachment is essentially a formal indictment of a government official. Being impeached does not remove an official from office – rather, it means formal charges are being brought against them.
Two US presidents have been impeached: Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson.
Clinton was impeached in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice – he was accused of lying under oath about his extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He eventually was acquitted.
Johnson was impeached in 1868 on the primary charge of violating the Tenure of Office Act by removing Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton and trying to replace him with Lorenzo Thomas. Johnson was also acquitted.
President Richard Nixon resigned before impeachment proceedings could begin.
What charges can the president be impeached on?
At the federal level, the president, vice president, and “all civil officers of the United States” can be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” according to Article II of the US Constitution.
While all felonies are impeachable, the Supreme Court has never formally ruled on what constitutes an impeachable offense.
“After Watergate, many people said that an impeachable offense is whatever the House and Senate think it is,” Robert Deitz, a former top counsel for the National Security Agency and CIA, told Business Insider. “So I could imagine people saying: ‘Look, I don’t give a damn whether what [the president] did is felonious or not. But the comment or conduct itself has brought disgrace upon the White House, and therefore we think [the president] should be impeached for that.'”
Keith Whittington, an expert on presidential impeachment and a professor of politics at Princeton University, said: “It may be that he’s acting completely within his legal authority and yet still has abused his office in ways that might rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
“But that would have to be something that would need to be explored through congressional hearings,” he said.
Hillary and Bill Clinton. Thomson Reuters How does the impeachment process work?
In the case of a presidential impeachment, the onus is on Congress to bring a charge.
The House of Representatives drafts an article of impeachment, while the Senate holds the trial.
Any representative can initiate the presidential impeachment process.
The House Judiciary Committee typically reviews resolutions calling for the impeachment of a person, while the Rules Committee presides over resolutions calling for investigations into whether certain conduct is impeachable. It sends that resolution to the Judiciary Committee if it feels the conduct is objectionable.
The Judiciary Committee ultimately decides whether there are grounds for impeachment. If a majority of its members agree, the committee drafts a formal article of impeachment, which lays out a charge being brought against an official. That article is then brought and debated before the full House.
The House can consider each article individually or look at the resolution as a whole. If a simple majority votes to impeach based on any article or the full resolution, the impeachment goes to the Senate.
The Senate holds the trial for the charges. Typically, the vice president oversees Senate trials, but in a presidential impeachment, the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides.
The trial unfolds in the same way a criminal trial would in a courtroom. Representatives act as the prosecutors, while the official is defended by an attorney or attorneys of their choosing.
The Senate then deliberates in private, the way a jury does. For an official to be removed from office, two-thirds of senators must vote to convict them.
If that official is convicted, they are immediately removed from office and may be prohibited from holding office in the future. A conviction also opens the door for a possible a criminal prosecution.
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https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/11/politics/poll-of-the-week-trump-nixon/index.html
Poll: Trump is as strongly disliked now as Nixon was before he resigned
Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN
Updated 1959 GMT (0359 HKT) August 12, 2018
Coons on Trump attorney's claim: It's Nixonian
Hillary Clinton invokes Nixon in grad speech
(CNN)First things first: The theme song of the week is Gotcha by Tom Scott from the television show "Starsky and Hutch."
Poll of the week: A new Marist College poll finds that 20% of Americans rate President Donald Trump's job performance as excellent, 20% as pretty good, 13% as only fair and 45% as poor.
There is, not surprisingly, a large gap between how members of the two parties view Trump. Although only 2% of Democrats say Trump is doing an excellent job, 49% of Republicans do. Democrats are far more likely to give a poor rating at 80% compared to 6% of Republicans.
What's the big idea: Trump has, throughout his first term, maintained a low but fairly steady approval rating. He's also had a high disapproval rating. Because Trump's ratings have remained in stasis relative to other presidents, a number have "caught up" to Trump's unpopularity at this point in their presidency. Put another way: Trump is no longer clearly the least popular president at this point in his presidency.
What still makes Trump unique though is the amount of intensity his detractors have for him. You might say many strongly dislike him. The excellent, pretty good, only fair and poor scale allows us to get at that because it's been asked for every president since President John Kennedy.
Trump is as strongly disliked as President Richard Nixon was when he resigned the presidency 44 years ago this week. Back then, 45% of people said Nixon was doing a poor job as president in a Harris poll.
Among Democrats, the intensity of the dislike toward Trump is even deeper today than it was against Nixon back in 1974. Back in 1974, 70% of those who said they voted for Democrat George McGovern in 1972 (37% of the sample) gave Nixon a poor rating. That's 10 percentage points below the 80% of Democrats (35% of the Marist sample) who give Trump a poor rating today.
What's so interesting is that even though a majority of people didn't strongly dislike Nixon, it's not like they wanted to stay him in office. The Harris poll back in 1974 found that 56% of Americans wanted him impeached and removed from office compared with only 34% who didn't want that to happen. Among McGovern voters, it was 83%. Clearly, Americans didn't like Nixon, but it didn't boil over into strong dislike in the same way it does with Trump.
The intensity factor goes both ways with Trump, though. While as many Americans strongly dislike Trump today as they did Nixon back in 1974, a lot more love Trump today than loved Nixon in 1974. Just 7% of Americans said that Nixon was doing an excellent job in the last Harris poll taken before he left office. That's far lower than the 20% who give Trump an excellent rating now.
The love for Trump now among Republicans is also considerably greater than it was for Nixon in 1974. Among those who were going to vote for a Republican for Congress in 1974 and had voted in 1972 (26% of the sample), only 20% gave Nixon an excellent rating. That's far less than the 49% of Republicans (27% of the sample) who give Trump an excellent rating today.
The love and dislike Trump elicits has proven to be a positive and a negative for him. It's been a positive because so few Republican lawmakers have been willing to abandon him given they feel he is beloved by the base. Additionally, it has helped Trump from falling too far below an overall approval rating of 40%.
The number of Americans who hold strong negative feelings towards Trump is, however, significantly greater than the number who hold strong positive feelings.
In fact, it's record breaking how many give Trump a poor rating this early in his presidency.
President Ronald Reagan, for example, had a higher combined "only fair" and poor in an August 1982 Harris poll than Trump currently has. In 1982, however, only 26% rated Reagan's job performance as poor. That's far below Trump's current 45%.
Like Reagan did in 1982, President Bill Clinton had a higher combined "only fair" and poor rating than Trump in a late July 1994 Harris poll. His poor rating though was just 24%.
Or how about one of Trump's favorite punching bags: President Barack Obama. A June 2010 Pew Research Center poll found that 56% of Americans thought he was doing an "only fair" or poor job. His poor job rating was similar to both Clinton's and Reagan's at 27%.
All of these presidents saw major midterm losses for their party. There's no reason to believe Trump's Republican Party won't suffer as much if not moreso.
The intensity of the disapproval for Trump has translated to a significant enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans in midterm polling and special elections. It could drive Democrats to their greatest House seat gain in a midterm since the last time a Republican president had such a high poor rating in that midterm year. That of course was in 1974.
