- There have been 4 presidential impeachments in US history. Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump twice - in 2019 and 2021, making him the only president impeached twice. - No president has been convicted by the Senate after impeachment. Conviction requires a two-thirds majority. Impeachment only requires a House majority. - Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act after firing his Secretary of War. He was acquitted by one vote in the Senate. Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice relating to the Monica Lewinsky scandal but acquitted. Donald Trump's first impeachment was for abuse of power and obstruction

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Post author By Charlie January 28, 2021
Overview of all US Presidential Impeachments +
Richard Nixon’s Resignation
theweeklyrambler.com/overview-of-all-us-presidential-impeachments-richard-nixons-resignation/
So far there have been four presidential impeachments throughout all of US history, and
now Trump makes up half of those, I guess that could also be used as a good fat joke. It’s
quite unreal when you think of it in that sort of terms, and the fact Trump is the only US
President to have been impeached twice. Only two other US presidents have been
impeached, Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson and another was close to being impeached
but resigned before it took place – Richard Nixon.
So far no US Presidents have ever been convicted by the Senate and removed from office
after these impeachments and it is likely to remain that way even after the latest Senate
trial on Donald Trump is completed. This is largely due to needing a special majority of
two-thirds in the Senate to convict and remove the President from office, neither of which
either side typically ever has. Meanwhile impeachments only require a simple majority in
the House of Representatives.
With that being said let’s look into all of the presidential impeachments in US history so
far, starting with the first ever impeachment of a US President – Andrew Johnson. We
shall also look into the resignation of Richard Nixon at the end.
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

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Andrew Johnson. Photo in Public Domain.
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States he was a Democratic Party
member. He served a term of four-years from April 15th 1865 until March 4th 1869, he
was Vice-President to Abraham Lincoln running on the ticket of the National Union party
(a party of Abraham Lincoln made up of the Republicans and elements of other parties to
show unity during the American Civil War) but assumed the presidency after Lincoln was
assassinated after the end of the American Civil War. Andrew Johnson returned as a
member of the Democratic Party.

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One of the things Andrew Johnson was best known for during his time as President was
the Alaska Purchase, when the US acquired the Alaskan territory from the Russian
Empire, which would not become a US state until almost 100-years had passed, the
territory gained statehood in 1959, the same year as Hawaii did. Another big part of
Andrew Johnson’s time as President was restoration and reconstruction after the
American Civil War, and the controversial way Andrew Johnson tried to deal with these
challenges lead him into conflict with the Republicans, who dominated Congress at the
time.
Andrew Johnson wanted to restore seceded states back to the Union as fast as possible
and as such he put out a series of proclamations that directed seceded states to hold
conventions and elections to reform their civil governments. Many of the Southern States
in this decided to return their old leaders and passed racist Black Code laws that degraded
former black slaves of many civil liberties. This outraged Congressional Republicans who
refused to seat such legislators and also advanced their own legislation to overrule such
actions of the Southern States.
Unfortunately the Congressional Republicans in doing this would face vetoes on their
legislation from Andrew Johnson, leading to a back-and-forth contest of presidential
vetoes and congressional overriding of such vetoes. Andrew Johnson also opposed the
14th Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. As the political skirmish
between Andrew Johnson and Congress escalated the President decided to unexpectedly
go on a national tour to try and turn public opinion against the Republican-dominated
Congress by promoting his own controversial executive policies, this was in hopes of
getting the Republican Congress to back-down. Many of the Presidents speeches proved
politically disastrous and self-damaging, further on he also suffered political
embarrasment when his home state of Tennessee became one of the only Southern States
at the time to ratify the 14th Amendment.
After Andrew Johnson said he planned to fire anyone in his Cabinet who disagreed with
him, due to entrenched opposition against his Southern policies, Congress passed the
Tenure of Office Act to restrict the ability for the President to simply just fire his
Secretaries and would instead require approval from the Senate. The bill was vetoed by
Johnson but Congress overode the veto and it became law. This Act would eventually lead
to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
Several attempts were made to bring forth impeachment charges in 1867 by the House
Committee of the Judiciary such as by exaining Johnson’s bank accounts, summoning
Cabinet members to testify and they investigated whether the President may have
impeded the prosecution of the former Confederate President Davis after he was released
on bail. Impeachment charges were for now voted down after little of significance was
found.
Tensions between Johnson and Stanton continued building meanwhile as they both
attempted to out-manuver each other related to Johnson’s Southern policies. One such
sticking point was whether military officers placed in command of the South could

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override civil authorities. Some time after this Congress recovened and passed a
Reconstruction Act that clarified this question against the President, who vetoed it but it
was overriden. The bill also restricted the President’s control over the Army in the South.
It was after this point, when Congress had gone into recess, that the President decided he
was going to fire Stanton after all and he eventually demanded the resignation of Stanton,
but Stanton refused to do so with Congress out of session, so instead the President
suspended him pending the next meeting of Congress, which the Tenure of Office Act
allowed.
The General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant, another strong opponent of the President who
had worked alongside Stanton to undermine Johnson’s Southern policy, was placed in
Stanton’s place as a temporary replacement, he made Grant transfer several high-ranking
army officers who had angered him over following Congress’ plan. Johnson also issued a
proclamation that pardoned most Confederates, except for those who held office under
the Confederacy or who had held federal office but broken their oaths. This move further
angered the Republicans, but they were cowed after the Democrats found some success in
the Ohio legislature elections and after Ohio, Connecticut and Minnesota turned down
propositions that would give African-Americans the right to vote.
But it wasn’t long until attempts at impeachment resumed when Congress met in
November, the Judiciary Committee this time passed a resolution of impeachment, but it
would be another failed attempt and voted down by the House. Johnson would soon after
this notify Congress of Stanton’s suspension and Grant’s interim position. The Senate
ultimately disaproved and as such Stanton remained, Johnson though still attempted to
dismiss and replace him, but Stanton refused to leave his office and this time the House
impeached Johnson for intentionally violating the Tenure of Office Act, there were 11
articles of impeachment in total that were related to violation of the Tenure of Office and
questioning legitimacy of Congress.
A subsequent Senate trial saw him very nearly convicted on the 11th article of
impeachment over violation of the Tenure of Office, off by just one vote of the two-thirds
majority needed, votes on whether to convict over two further articles of impeachment
yielded frustratingly identical results, after this Johnson’s opponents abandoned their
attempt to convict Johnson. Johnson nonetheless did not serve a second term as he failed
to get re-nominated in his party again. Ulysses S. Grant went on to win the next
presidential election as a Republican.
The Tenure of Office Act was later repealed in 1887, which I’m sure was a massive relief
for Donald Trump, whose administration has had one of the highest turnover rates of any
other.
The Impeachment of Bill Clinton

5. 5/13
Bill Clinton. Photo in Public Domain.
William Jefferson Clinton, known popularly as Bill Clinton, was the 42nd President of the
United States serving two full terms from 1993 until 2001. He has since perhaps become
one of the most polarising figures in modern US politics up until Donald Trump made his
appearance, and those in the Clinton family who have entered into US political offices
have collectively been dubbed the Clinton Dynasty/Cabal etc. There are many conspiracy
theories and vast allegations that circulate around the Clinton family now, specifically Bill
and Hillary Clinton, many of them likely far blown out of proportion and without

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substance that’d hold up in a court of law. Many opponents of the Clintons who believe in
such allegations and conspiracies will often refer to them collectively as the Clinton crime
family.
Bill Clinton is a member of the Democratic Party and before becoming President served as
Governor of Arkansas several times and Attorney-General of Arkansas. His wife Hillary
Clinton was Secretary of State under the Barack Obama administration and has attempted
to run for president on two seperate occasions. In becoming President Bill Clinton turned
Geogre H.W Bush into a one-term president.
Some of the things that Bill Clinton was known for during his presidency was the North
American Free Trade Agreement, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act,
reforms to welfare, and the appointments of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to
the United States Supreme Court. Clinton also ordered military intervention into the
Bosnian and Kosovo wars and also signed the Dayton Agreement which paved the way for
peace in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Clinton also signed the Iraq Liberation Act to support
non-military efforts of toppling Saddam Hussein from power.
Clinton would become the 2nd US President to be impeached by the House of
Representatives. They were charges of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice
related to the Clinton v. Jones case which led to the revelation of the Monica Lewinsky
affair scandal. He was acquitted by the Senate and the impeachment may well have served
to bolster the approval rating of Bill Clinton, this effect had made some democrats wary of
impeaching Trump during his first term, as it could have had a similar effect and allow
him to more easily win a 2nd term, but these fears were never realized.
The first article of impeachment was to do with perjury to a grand jury, which means Bill
Clinton was accused of lying under oath to a grand jury, which is a federal offense. The
offense took place in relation to the landmark 1997 SCOTUS case of Clinton v. Jones,
which was a case that argued the sitting US President does not have immunity from civil
law litigation in a federal court over acts that were done before taking office and which are
unrelated to the office – relating to a sexual harassment case against Bill Clinton alledged
to have taken place while he was Governor of Arkansas, which was delayed due to Bill
Clinton becoming President. The SCOTUS ultimately ruled in favour of Jones.
A grand jury had been convened related to the case to investigate perjury he may have
made during the case in his sworn deposition, this lead to the Monica Lewinsky scandal
being uncovered after tapes had emerged in the SCOTUS case, this also famously led to
Clinton saying in an interview “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
Monica Lewinsky was a 22-year-old White House Intern who later worked in the
Department of Defense, the Clinton v. Jones case had led to the revelation of their affair
from 1995 until 1997 while he was in office as President. Due to the lie under oath and
attempts to conceal the affair a 2nd impeachment article was passed for obstruction of
justice in relation to that. The articles of impeachment were heavily voted through by
Republicans although some democrats also voted on side.

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The Senate later held a 21-day long trial on the charges, both leading to acquittals with
both parties voting more-or-less down usual lines.
The Double Impeachment of Donald Trump
Donald Trump. Photo in Public Domain.
The two most recent impeachments happened in December 2019 and January 2021
respectively, making Donald Trump the only President in US history to be impeached
twice. Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States and is one of the most

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controversial presidents in US history and a deeply polarising figure. He ran for President
as part of the Republican Party and developed a new sort of populist movement among
party supporters known as Trumpism.
He was known for many things during his 4-years in office from 2016 until 2021,
including starting construction of a border wall between the US and Mexico; attempting
to end Obamacare; a muslim travel ban between the US and several muslim-majority
countries and its ensuing court battles; the attempted ending of the DACA program to
give citizenship to undocumented migrants who had been brought over by their parents
as children – and its ensuing court battles; the appointment of three SCOTUS Justices,
two of which were under controversial circumstances; controversial leaving of the Paris
Climate Accord and Iran Nuclear Deal; attempted peace process between North and
South Korea; and much more.
After his 2016 win accusations would begin coming up over possible Russian interference
in the 2016 election in favour of Donald Trump which ended up going as far as
accusations of active collusion between Donald Trump, members of his administration
and Russia. This led to investigations by the FBI into certain Trump administration
figures, such as Micheal Flynn – in one instance Donald Trump had urged then FBI
Director James Comey to let Flynn go because he was a “good guy”, Trump would also
later fire James Comey, both events led to accusations of obstruction of justice, but no
impeachment attempts were succesful due to Republican’s controlling the House at the
time.
As the Trump-Russia-Collusion and obstruction of justice accusations further broadened
a Special Counsel was eventually set up in May 2017 by then Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein to investigate both accusations led by Robert Mueller. The investigation
was massive in scope and involved numerous figures in the Trump administration and
others outside of it as well, including a number of companies. The Special Counsel lasted
until March 2019, Democrats had gained control of the House in the 2018 Midterm
elections but widely held off pursuing any possible attempts at impeachment until after
the investigation concluded.
The Muellar Report concluded that the Trump campaign had welcomed Russian
interference and also expected to benefit from it, but that there was not enough evidence
to bring conspiracy charges against Trump or his associates. The report also was unable to
come to a conclusion on obstruction of justice due to a Justice Department guideline that
prohibited federal indictment of a sitting President. Both sides saw the report as a win in
some way or another, for those on the Democratic side or those opposed to Trump it was
vindication enough for his impeachment and removal, while for Republicans and other
Trump supporters it proved to them that it was in-fact all a witch hunt after all, as Trump
had called it. The investigation is nonetheless credited with bringing charges against 34
individuals, 3 companies and which so far produced 8 guilty pleas and a trial conviction,
and it also led to numerous spin-off investigations against Donald Trump and others, a
number of which are still ongoing.

9. 9/13
The Mueller Report would bring on side numerous more Democrats who were originally
divided over impeachment, but such attempts at impeachment were still avoided as a
number of senior Democrats didn’t want to potentially make Trump a martyr before the
2020 election.
Eventually though impeachment charges would be brought over after a whistleblower
filed a complaint about a phone call between Donald Trump and the President of Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky that took place on July 25th 2019. It came about that Trump had
pressured the Ukrainian President to investigate Crowdstrike, a cybertechnology
company that Trump and his supporters accussed of having played a role of alledgedly
fabricating the Russia DNC hack as a way to discredit Trump’s 2016 win and that a DNC
server was hidden in Ukraine by them, and also to investigate Joe Biden (at the time a
presidential candidate for 2020) and his son Hunter Biden over alledged payments to
Russia also a part of discrediting Trump. It was said that the White House attempted to
cover-up the incident and the whistleblower alledged it may have been part of a wider
campaign that included withholding financial aid to the country – Trump would later
confirm he had withheld military aid, although under contradictory circumstances.
After these revelations House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would begin an impeachment inquiry
into the affair, with the investigation being if whether Trump had solicited foreign
inteference into the 2020 US election, of which Trump was then accussed of obstructing
the house inquiry itself via telling officials in his administration to ignore subpoenas for
documents and testimonies. After the conclusion of the inquiry two articles of
impeachment were drawn up, one for abuse of power related to the Ukraine phone call
scandal, and Obstruction of Congress for inteference in the house inquiry, both articles
were passed and Trump was impeached for the first time. All Republicans and three
Democrats had voted against the articles of impeachment.
The Senate trial heavily went down party lines as well, and with Republicans having
control of the Senate they were able to vote down attempts to introduce subpoenas, votes
on conviction went heavily down party lines, with Mitt Romney being the only Republican
senator to vote against Trump on the Abuse of Power charge, this also made him the first
ever Senator to vote to convict a President of his own party.
The second impeachment would come in January of 2021 after the 2020 election had seen
to Trump’s defeat, followed by numerous failed attempts to overturn the election via court
battles that alledged vote fraud in several close states. After these failures protests were
organised in Washington D.C for January 6th, backed by Donald Trump and others
involved in Trump Campaign lawsuits in the 2020 Election such as Rudy Guliani. The
mass protests started with a firey speech from Trump in the city before marching down to
the US Capitol buildings – where at the same time Congress was making the final count
and certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote to fully certify Joe Biden’s win, where
several attempts were made by Republican’s to challenge the results.
It was from this point that things started getting ugly as police and security forces were
overwhelmed by the massive crowd who then went on to storm the US Capitol, the
Electoral College certification had to be postponed and legislators evacuated. The rioters

10. 10/13
broke into numerous congressional offices and the Senate floor itself and occupied the
Capitol until Trump had finally urged them to disperse and mass reinforcements of police,
SWAT and National Guard begun arriving, with Donald Trump having refused to
authorize the National Guard, Mike Pence, the Vice-President had done so instead. In the
end five people had been killed and people begun calling it an attempt at insurrection
abetted by dangerous language used by Trump in the lead up to January 6th and during
the day itself – where he had also called on Mike Pence, his Vice-President, to effectively
challenge the Electoral College result himself, of which he refused to do.
After this event the House led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Trump’s Cabinet to remove
Trump via the 25th Amendment, saying he was no longer fit for office, but after Mike
Pence refused to do this the House very quickly drew up an article of impeachment that
accused Trump of inciting an insurrection against the US Government, and was then
promptly impeached for a 2nd time, with 10 Republican congressman also voting for it,
making it the most members of a party ever to vote impeachment on a president of their
own party. A Senate trial on this is set to go forth after Trump has already left office, but it
will still be possible to convict him nonetheless and also bar him from running in the
future, but it is again seen as unlikely that enough Republican’s will come over to convict
him.
The Resignation of Richard Nixon – Related to Impeachment & Removal
Dangers

11. 11/13
Richard Nixon. Photo in Public Domain.
Richard Nixon was the 37th US President serving a full term and only a small part of his
2nd term (1969-1974) before he became the first ever US President and so far the only US
President to resign from office due to the Watergate Scandal and the likely chance of him
being impeached by the House and then removed from office due to Senate conviction. He
was a member of the Republican Party. Before becoming President he had been a US
Representative and Senator for California and Vice-President to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Nixon had attempted to run for the Presidency previously in 1960 but lost narrowly to
Democrat John F. Kennedy. He also almost became Governor of California in another
close race.

12. 12/13
Richard Nixon was another of the Cold War era US President’s making many of his
decisions and activities during that time significant to world events. Major parts of his
presidency included ending involvement in the Vietnam War; establishing diplomatic
relations with China and calming tensions with the Soviet Union; and the establishment
of the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon also begun the so-called War on Cancer
and presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing to win the Space Race. Nixon was re-
elected in an electoral landslide for a 2nd term but was taken down by the Watergate
Scandal not long afterwards.
The Watergate Scandal is one of the largest and well known political scandals in US
history and is the origination of putting -gate on the end of other scandals not just in the
US but elsewhere in the world as well. The scandal surfaced after 1972 and related to the
Nixon administrations numerous attempts to cover-up a break-in that took place on June
17th, 1972 at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office
building in Washington D.C. Five perpatrators involved in the break-in were arrested and
the Justice Department managed to connect cash found on them to the Nixon re-election
campaign committee.
This damning finding led to further investigations, that uncovered further damning
evidence that then led to the House granting its judiciary committee increased
investigational authority and the Senate also created a special investigative committee.
From this time witnesses would bring forth further damaging testimony about the
president Nixon approving plans for a cover-up and that further damning evidence could
be found on voice-activated tape recorders in the Oval Office.
The administration of Nixon throughout tried its hardest to resist the investigations and
probes which led to a constitutional crisis forming, and continued evidence and testimony
against the Nixon administration led to the House commencing the process for
impeachment in 1973. Most damaging of all was when the US Supreme Court ordered the
release of the Oval Office tapes that revealed Nixon had taken a direct part in the cover-up
conspiracy. Articles of impeachment were drawn up by the House for obstruction of
justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress. And so facing almost certain
impeachment, a cover-up that was now public and plummeting political support, Nixon
resigned on August 9th, 1974. There is strong belief that if he had not he would have been
both impeached and convicted and as such removed from office.
The investigations themselves led to 69 indictments and 48 convictions, many of whom
were Nixon administration officials. Nixon’s Vice-President, Gerald Ford, replaced him as
President after his resignation and pardoned Richard Nixon. Gerald Ford served out the
rest of the term and ran for re-election beating Reagan in the primaries but losing to
Democrat Jimmy Carter in the election itself – Gerald Ford’s term was the shortest of any
US President in history who did not die in office.
Well that gives a nice fun little overview of all the impeachments in US history so far and
also an overview of the Nixon Watergate Scandal resignation. I wonder who the next one
will be… if history tells us anything it should be a long while yet before another happens.

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