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As talk of impeachment flooded the internet in September 2019, we came across two rumors concerning the impact of the impeachment process on President Donald Trump's reelection opportunities. The first held that a president who was impeached by the House, but not convicted by the Senate, could run for office two more times because the failed impeachment would nullify the first term. The second posited that if the House votes to impeach a president, but the Senate doesn't convict and remove the person from office, the president is barred from running for office again. We'll take a look at each of those theories below. But first, a quick look at how the impeachment process works. People often use the word impeachment when referring to the removal of a president from office. But that's not exactly how it works. The House of Representatives has the sole Power of Impeachment, as stated in Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. But it is up to the Senate to convict and remove a president from office. In this way, impeachment is roughly akin to bringing formal charges against an individual. It is then up to the Senate to convict the individual on those charges. The aforementioned theories both deal with the gray area between impeachment and conviction. In other words, what happens if the president is impeached by the House of Representatives but is not convicted by the Senate? Theory 1: If a president is impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate, the first presidential term is nullified and the president may run for election two more times. FALSE: This theory has been posited by a few social media users, but it reached a larger audience when it was shared by pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec: The tweet reads: These Democrats don't realize that if they impeach Trump and the Senate doesn't confirm it then it nullifies Trump's first term and he gets to run two more times. Read the Constitution, people. This is not how impeachment works. Before we get to what the Constitution says about impeachment, we can get a glimpse of the hypothetical scenario posited in this tweet by taking a quick look at our country's recent history. President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on Dec. 19, 1998. However, Clinton was not convicted by the Senate. We searched news reports from the time and found no serious reporters, historians, or politicians arguing that the Senate's failure to convict Clinton literally nullified the president's previous term and gave him the opportunity to run for office again. The Associated Press reported on Feb. 12, 1999: The process for impeachment is laid out in Article I and Article II of the U.S. Constitution. This text says nothing about a president's term being nullified by an impeachment proceeding. Furthermore, the 22nd amendment of the Constitution explicitly states that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice. Doug Pennington, director of communication for the Constitutional Accountability Center, told us in an email that Posobiec's statement was false: Theory 2: A president is barred from seeking a second term once impeached. MOSTLY FALSE: A number of social media users seem to be under the impression that Trump would not be able to seek reelection if the House of Representatives impeaches him. One Twitter user, for instance, wrote: If he gets impeached he won’t be able to run in the next election like he plans to. It would guarantee that we can’t have 4 more years under his leadership. But that isn't the case. A president who is impeached by the House but is not convicted by the Senate could still run for reelection. Pennington told us: Nothing in the Constitution’s language on impeachment prevents a president impeached but not convicted from running for a second of a two-term maximum. In fact, before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry into Trump in September 2019, political pundits noted that a failed impeachment could help Trump's reelection efforts. An opinion piece in The Hill noted: However, a bit of truth is offered here. The Constitution explains the country has two penalties for impeachment: removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States. If a president is impeached by the House of Representatives, the Senate could convict, remove the president from office, and disqualify the person from holding future office. This scenario, however, falls into some gray area because it has never been tested at the presidential level. It is possible that the Senate could take two separate votes, one on removal from office and one on disqualification from future office, which could result in a president's removal from office but provide an opportunity to seek reelection. It's also theoretically possible that a president who has been impeached, convicted, removed, and disqualified, could seek office at a lower level of government. We asked Pennington about the possibility of a president seeking reelection after the House has impeached and the Senate convicted the person. He told us: To sum up: Although a president is impeached by the House of Representatives, the repercussions of this legal process don't come to fruition until the Senate votes to convict the president. If that happens, the Senate can vote to remove the president from office and disqualify the person from holding future office. If the Senate does not convict, the president will not be removed from office, nor will the person be prevented from seeking reelection (if he/she has not already reached the two-term limit). Nowhere in the Constitution, however, does it state that a failed impeachment process would nullify a presidential term and allow a president to seek extra time in office.
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