Removing a president from office
Article II, Sec. 4, of the Constitution says, “The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution says the president may be removed from office if he notifies the Senate’s president pro tempore and speaker of the House of Representatives that he is unable to perform his presidential duties. He is then replaced by the vice president until such time as he is able to perform his duties.
Section 4 of the 25th Amendment says if the vice president and “a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments (the Cabinet) or of such other body as Congress may by law provide,” should notify the president pro tempore and House speaker that they believe the president cannot perform his duties, then, with congressional concurrence, the vice president becomes “Acting President,” also until such time as the president is recovered.
So, there are five ways to remove the president from office: death, resignation, impeachment, willingly (if, as usually intended, temporarily) leaving office under Section 3 of the 25th Amendment, or being forced from office under Section 4.
Most removed presidents have died in office, four by assassination, four by natural causes, and one, Richard Nixon, resigned rather than be impeached. Two presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, invoked Section 3 of the 25th Amendment, allowing their vice presidents to temporarily act as president while they underwent invasive surgeries.
Never has Section 4 of the 25th Amendment removed a president from office, in part because of the near impossibility of getting a majority of Cabinet members to vote to remove the man who appointed them to the Cabinet. Further, you need the approval of two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate, another uphill climb.
Two presidents, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, have been impeached, which only takes a simple majority in the House, but neither was convicted in the Senate since a two-thirds Senate majority is also necessary, which is a steep uphill climb because, today, there are too many safeguards against a president committing treason or accepting bribes, and the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is so vague it is open to interpretation. And how each senator interprets it will depend on many factors, not the least of which is whether that senator is from the same political party as the president, the undisputed leader of that party.
The present-day point being that, like it or not, constitutionally speaking, removing President Trump from office, while not impossible, is a very steep uphill climb.
Bruce G. Kauffmann’s email address is bruce@historylessons.net.