What does impeachment mean?

Answer 1

impeachment is the first of two stages in a specific process for a legislative body to remove a government official without that official's agreement. The second stage is called conviction.

Impeachment is so rare that the term is often misunderstood. A typical misconception is to confuse it with involuntary removal from office; in fact, it is only the legal statement of charges, parallelling an indictment in criminal law. An official who is impeached faces a second legislative vote (whether by the same body or another), which determines conviction, or failure to convict, on the charges embodied by the impeachment. Most constitutions require a supermajority to convict.

Answer 2

Impeachment in the United States is an expressed power of the legislature which allows for formal charges to be brought against a high official of government for conduct committed in office. The trial or removal of an official is separate from the act of impeachment. Typically, the lower house of the legislature will impeach the official and the upper house will conduct the trial.

At the Federal level, the House of Representatives has the sole power of impeaching the President, Vice President and all other civil officers of the United States. Officials can be impeached for: "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The United States Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. The removal of impeached officials is automatic upon conviction in the Senate.

Impeachment can also occur at the state level; state legislatures can impeach state officials, including governors, according to their respective constitutions.

Answer 3

Many people think impeachment is the same as removal of a sitting president or politician. In actuality, it is simply the act of bringing up charges regarding a politician, usually for improper or criminal behavior, and to set the stage for a public tribunal. In the US, this means that a politician such as the President can be "tried" before a tribunal (in the case of the President, the Senate is the tribunal). Also, only the House of Representatives can commence impeachment proceedings. So technically, the House "impeaches", the Senate tries. It takes only a majority in the House to impeach, but a 2/3 majority in the Senate to convict and remove the President.

For example, in 1999 there were four charges brought up against President Clinton, all relating to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Only the charges of perjury ("lying" under oath) and obstruction of justice passed by a slim majority in the House. Most political analysts feel the vote was completely political (all votes to impeach Democrat President Clinton were by Republicans). The Senate tried the "case" with the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding. The Senate rejected the removal of President Clinton by a narrow margin, nowhere near the 67 Senate votes required for removal from office. The entire affair is frankly really a lame attempt by Republicans to smear a sitting President- it would have accomplished nothing because Clinton had already been re-elected in 1996 and he only had two more years of his second and final term. Many now see this as one of America's darkest hours, where politics became more important than national issues, and where Republicans, pathetically wishing they had won the Presidency, tried all they could do smear a Democratic President. The affair certainly did nothing to improve America's image abroad.

On the other hand, the real crook, President Richard Nixon, who had his henchment break into the Watergate complex in 1972 to steal documents from the Democratic National Committee, and who was taped discussing the break-in and the subsequent attempt to cover it up and pay hush money, and who did obstruct justice by attempting to keep crucial evidence from being discovered, was NEVER impeached because the bastard resigned before he could be impeached. Had he stayed in office, it is 100% likely he would have been impeached and almost 100% likely he would have been removed by a 2/3 Senate majority.

The only other case of impeachment was the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln after the latter's assasination. Johnson, who was from Tennessee, wanted a more South-friendly policy during the post Civil War era, and he vetoed several Republican measures that would have harshly punished the South (the Republicans were, at this time, the most vocal opponents of slavery and the rebel South). Johnson made the mistake of removing a prominent Republican Cabinet member- Secretary of War Stanton- a move that was regarded as "illegal" because Congress had just passed a law (the Tenure of Office Act) forbidding it. That law, in fact, was merely a Republican trap because it was known that Johnson wanted to clean up his Republican Cabinet, and thus it set the lure for the President's breaking of the law.

Johnson was impeached and subsequently tried, but the vote failed by one, and so Johnson was never removed from office. (for a profile of that narrow vote, see "Profiles in Courage", a ghost-written book with Kennedy's name on it)

Presidents Clinton and Johnson (Andrew, not Lyndon) are therefore the only two Presidents to have been impeached. At least so far.

Answer 4

In the legal community, it means to contradict to discredit the testimony of a witness. For example, if a criminal testifies that he was at his house the evening of a crime and you then call your own witnesses to testify that the criminal was at the movie theater where the crime took place, you are impeaching the testimony of the criminal.

Answer 5

A legal document charging a public official with misconduct in office.
If convicted the penalties can get quite severe. Then again, sometimes they don't. ;)

Answer 6

It means to take the position away from a president.

Answer 7

In the case of Mr Bush it means freedom from a war criminal.

Answer 8

for a president to be tryied for a crime