What does Trump’s impeachment mean?

Impeachment is a process that allows Congress to punish serious presidential misconduct, such as treason, bribery, or behaviour that falls under “other high Crimes and Misdemeanours” The charges are political, not criminal.

Wednesday’s article of impeachment accused Trump of “repeatedly [issuing] false statements asserting that the presidential election results were fraudulent and should not be accepted,” and said he “willfully made statements to the crowd that encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol.”

What happens next?

Trump will face trial in the Senate, the upper chamber of the US congress, to determine his guilt. But it will take place after he’s left office next Wednesday 20 January and will likely stretch into the early days of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Senators will decide whether or not to bar him from holding public office again. To reach the two-thirds majority needed to convict the president, at least 17 Democrats would need to vote with the Democrats in the evenly-split chamber.

The jury’s out on whether this will happen, but according to New York Times reports, on Tuesday, up to 20 Senate Republicans are open to convicting him. The stakes couldn’t be much higher.

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