Could Joe Biden face impeachment?
A GOP Senator is already calling for President-elect Joe Biden to be impeached once he takes office on January 20.
Republican President Donald Trump was impeached for the second time on January 13, the only president in US history to have been impeached twice.
Could Joe Biden face impeachment?
Joe Biden could only face impeachment should he violate the US Constitution article two, section four, which states that:
“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.”
The House of Representatives can vote to impeach a president with a simple majority. The Senate will then hold a trial which ends on a vote of a verdict.
It takes two-thirds of the Senate, a supermajority, to convict the president. If convicted, the president is removed from office, and the vice president would take power.
Why are there calls to impeach Biden?
Republican Senator Joni Ernst said that Biden could be impeached by the GOP after claims that Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin was fired for investigating the Burisma scandal.
Biden’s son Hunter held a board seat in the company.
“Joe Biden should be very careful what he’s asking for because, you know, we can have a situation where if it should ever be President Biden, that immediately, people, right the day after he would be elected would be saying, ‘Well, we’re going to impeach him,” Ernst told Bloomberg News in an interview on January 10.
The Republican Senator said Biden turned “a blind eye to Burisma because his son was on the board making over a million dollars a year.”
In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, the New York Post published a story on emails it obtained from a hard drive allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden.
The story alleged that Hunter introduced his father, now President-elect Joe Biden, to a top Ukrainian energy firm executive.
The reported introduction occurred less than a year before Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the firm.
Was Donald Trump impeached twice?
The House voted 232 to 197 to impeach Trump for a second time on January 13 after he was charged with inciting insurrection for telling rally-goers in Washington DC to march to Congress and “fight like hell” on January 6.
Trump’s second impeachment comes after several key Republicans jumped ship, voting to oust him following the Capitol riots.
Trump’s impeachment will now head to the Senate, where members of Congress will again vote on whether or Trump will be convicted on the charge.
As the result was announced, Pelosi slammed her gavel and said: “The resolution is adopted without objection.”
This is the first and only time a president has been impeached twice.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement after the House passed Trump’s impeachment, however, saying the Senate could not complete the process until after Joe Biden takes his place in office.
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“Given the rules, procedures, and Senate precedents that govern presidential impeachment trials, there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week,” McConnell said.
He continued: “Even if the Senate process were to begin this week a nd move promptly, no final verdict would be reached until after President Trump had left office. This is not a decision I am making; it is a fact.”
“In light of this reality, I believe it will best serve our nation if Congress and the executive branch spend the next seven days completely focused on facilitating a safe inauguration and an orderly transfer of power to the incoming Biden Administration,” the Senate majority leader said.