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#presidentialaccountability — Public Fediverse posts
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Holding the Office Is Not the Same as Fulfilling Its Duties
A president can win an election and still fail the test of leadership. The presidency is a public…
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The President and the Rule of Law: When the Defendant Returns to Power
By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 8, 2026
Donald J. Trump is the president of the United States.
Donald J. Trump is also a convicted felon.
Those statements are simultaneously true.
On May 30, 2024, a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. The prosecution alleged that business records were falsified as part of an effort to conceal a payment made shortly before the 2016 presidential election (New York State Unified Court System, 2024a, 2024b).
Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing, denounced the prosecution as politically motivated, and pursued appellate challenges to the conviction. His conviction therefore should not be described as beyond legal challenge. As of this writing, however, the jury verdict has not been overturned, and Trump remains convicted while pursuing his appeal (Reuters, 2026a).
That unprecedented situation raises an uncomfortable question for the United States.
The Constitution does not prohibit a convicted felon from serving as president.
But what happens to the rule of law when the person constitutionally charged with executing federal law has himself been criminally convicted—and when the presidency increasingly provides protections unavailable to ordinary citizens?
The answer is more complicated than simply declaring Trump’s conviction grounds for impeachment.
It is also considerably more important.
Thirty-Four Felony Convictions
Trump was indicted in New York in 2023 on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree under New York Penal Law § 175.10 (New York State Unified Court System, 2024c).
His trial began April 15, 2024.
After nearly seven weeks of proceedings, the jury began deliberations on May 29. On May 30, it returned guilty verdicts on all 34 counts (New York State Unified Court System, 2024b).
That wording matters.
Trump was not merely charged 34 times.
He was not simply accused by prosecutors.
A jury returned 34 guilty verdicts.
Those verdicts remain subject to appeal, as criminal convictions ordinarily are. Trump is entitled to challenge them through the appellate process, and an appellate court could ultimately reverse some or all of the convictions.
But unless and until that happens, describing Trump as a convicted felon is a statement of his current legal status, not political rhetoric (New York State Unified Court System, 2024b; Reuters, 2026a).
What Trump Was Actually Convicted Of
Precision is particularly important here because Trump’s New York case is routinely described inaccurately by both supporters and opponents.
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in the first degree.
The charges arose from records associated with reimbursements to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, following Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued that the records concealed an unlawful scheme intended to influence the election by suppressing potentially damaging information (New York State Unified Court System, 2024a).
Trump denied Daniels’ account of a sexual encounter and denied criminal wrongdoing.
The criminal issue was not whether having an extramarital sexual encounter is illegal.
It is not.
Nor was Trump convicted merely for paying someone to remain silent. Such agreements are not inherently criminal.
The prosecution concerned the manner in which business records were allegedly falsified and the purpose prosecutors said that falsification served.
That distinction is essential if this series is going to assess Trump’s conduct rather than caricature it.
The Sentence Was an Unconditional Discharge
Trump was sentenced on January 10, 2025, shortly before returning to the presidency.
The court imposed an unconditional discharge.
Under New York law, an unconditional discharge releases the defendant without conditions imposed upon that release (New York State Unified Court System, n.d.).
Trump therefore received no jail sentence and no probation.
That did not erase the verdict.
Judge Juan Merchan had previously explained the unusual constitutional problem confronting the court. Trump had been convicted, but he was preparing to assume the presidency. Merchan concluded that an unconditional discharge provided a means of bringing the criminal proceeding to judgment while avoiding interference with Trump’s forthcoming presidential responsibilities and preserving Trump’s ability to pursue an appeal (New York State Supreme Court, 2025).
The result was extraordinary.
The criminal justice system produced a felony conviction against a former president.
The electorate subsequently returned that defendant to the presidency.
And the sentencing court deliberately fashioned a punishment that would not interfere with the operation of the presidency.
None of those actions was necessarily unlawful.
Together, however, they illustrate the collision between presidential power and ordinary legal accountability.
A Criminal Conviction Is Not Automatically an Impeachable Offense
This point cannot be avoided simply because it complicates the argument for impeachment.
Trump’s New York convictions do not automatically constitute grounds for removing him from his present office.
The underlying conduct largely predates his first presidency. The jury verdict occurred after that presidency. The Constitution does not expressly declare that a president who has been convicted of a felony becomes ineligible to serve.
Impeachment is principally concerned with serious abuses associated with public office and public trust, rather than functioning as an automatic additional punishment for every crime an officeholder might commit (Congressional Research Service [CRS], 2025).
That means Congress should be extremely cautious about constructing a third impeachment article that simply says:
Trump is a convicted felon; therefore Trump must be removed.
That argument is constitutionally weaker than many of Trump’s opponents may wish it were.
The New York conviction matters enormously.
But it matters primarily because it creates a larger constitutional problem concerning the relationship between the presidency and the law.
Then the Supreme Court Changed the Landscape
On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. United States, one of the most consequential presidential-power cases in American history.
The Court held that a former president possesses absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority, at least presumptive immunity for official presidential acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts (Trump v. United States, 2024).
The decision did not declare presidents completely immune from criminal law.
That distinction is critical.
Unofficial conduct remains prosecutable.
But the decision established substantial criminal immunity surrounding official presidential actions and required courts to determine whether challenged conduct falls within protected presidential functions (Trump v. United States, 2024).
The majority reasoned that a president must be able to exercise constitutional authority without the threat that political opponents will later criminally prosecute legitimate presidential decisions. Without meaningful immunity, the Court reasoned, fear of prosecution could distort presidential decision-making (Trump v. United States, 2024).
That concern is not frivolous.
Imagine a system in which every departing president expects an incoming administration to prosecute controversial official decisions made by the previous administration.
Presidential government could quickly degenerate into cycles of political prosecution.
The majority attempted to prevent precisely that danger.
But the decision created another danger.
How Much Immunity Is Too Much?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
The dissent warned that the majority had substantially altered the relationship between the presidency and criminal law and had created protection broad enough to place dangerous presidential misconduct beyond ordinary prosecution (Trump v. United States, 2024, Sotomayor, J., dissenting).
The disagreement between the majority and dissent exposes the central constitutional dilemma.
A president needs independence.
A president cannot function if every difficult decision carries a credible threat of personal prosecution from political enemies.
But a president also cannot become a monarch.
The American system was constructed around the proposition that governmental power is limited and that public officials remain subject to law.
The challenge is determining where necessary presidential independence ends and effective legal impunity begins.
That question is no longer academic.
Trump is serving a second term under an immunity doctrine created by litigation arising from his own previous presidency.
The Presidency Is Not Supposed to Be a Sanctuary From Law
The Constitution gives presidents extraordinary authority.
It does not explicitly create a general presidential exemption from law.
The president must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (U.S. Const. art. II, § 3).
That language becomes particularly important when the president himself has a complicated relationship with the legal system.
A criminal conviction does not make every subsequent presidential decision illegitimate.
Nor does it establish that Trump is incapable of faithfully executing the laws.
But the combination of criminal conviction, presidential immunity, control over the executive branch, broad pardon authority, and authority over the Justice Department creates a structural problem unlike anything the United States has previously confronted.
The question becomes not simply whether Trump personally believes himself above the law.
The more important question is whether American institutions are constructing a presidency that functionally is.
The Justice Department Problem
The president appoints the attorney general and exercises enormous influence over the executive branch responsible for enforcing federal criminal law.
That authority is constitutionally legitimate.
But it becomes dangerous if law enforcement is transformed from an institution serving the United States into an institution serving the president personally.
Recent litigation illustrates why the distinction matters.
In August 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a ruling preventing Justice Department subpoenas directed at the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James because the prosecutor leading the investigation had been unlawfully installed in his position. James had previously brought the civil fraud case against Trump and his business and has argued that federal investigations involving her represent political retaliation. The Justice Department disputes that characterization and intends to seek Supreme Court review (Reuters, 2026b).
That ruling does not prove that Trump personally ordered an unlawful prosecution of James.
Nor does it prove that James committed no wrongdoing.
But it raises exactly the institutional question Congress must investigate:
Is federal prosecutorial authority being exercised according to neutral legal standards, or is governmental power being directed against people who previously investigated or prosecuted the president?
That distinction could become central to an impeachment inquiry.
The Rule of Law Requires More Than Courts
Americans often speak about the “rule of law” as though it simply means courts exist.
It means considerably more.
The rule of law requires that governmental power operate according to established legal rules rather than the personal wishes of whoever holds power.
It requires that political allies and political enemies be treated under the same legal standards.
It requires presidents to obey adverse judgments.
It requires prosecutors to exercise governmental authority for legitimate law-enforcement purposes.
And it requires that presidential power itself remain bounded by law.
Courts are one mechanism for maintaining those boundaries.
Congress is another.
That is where impeachment becomes relevant.
If presidential immunity makes certain official conduct difficult or impossible to prosecute criminally, impeachment becomes more important, not less important, as a constitutional accountability mechanism.
The Supreme Court itself recognized that its decision concerned criminal prosecution. It did not abolish impeachment (Trump v. United States, 2024).
The Constitution therefore still provides a political remedy for abuses of presidential authority even where criminal prosecution may be unavailable.
This Is Where a Third Impeachment Case Becomes Stronger
Trump’s 34 New York convictions alone provide a questionable foundation for a third impeachment because the underlying conduct predates his current presidency.
But suppose evidence establishes that, while president, Trump uses federal authority to punish prosecutors who previously investigated him.
Suppose executive agencies are directed toward personal retaliation.
Suppose presidential authority is used to obstruct lawful investigations.
Suppose officials are selected specifically to accomplish actions that other officials refuse to undertake because they believe those actions unlawful.
Suppose court orders are deliberately evaded.
Those would be different constitutional questions.
They would concern present presidential conduct.
And if sufficiently serious and sufficiently supported by evidence, they could fall squarely within the historical understanding of abuse of power and violation of public trust underlying “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (CRS, 2025).
That is why Trump’s legal history belongs in this series.
Not because being convicted automatically makes him impeachable.
Because his second presidency is testing whether the enormous powers of the presidency can be used to insulate the president himself from meaningful accountability.
The Cost of No Accountability
There is an easy mistake to make when discussing the rule of law.
It is to ask whether Donald Trump will go to prison.
That is not the most important question.
The more important question is whether the United States is developing two systems of accountability—one for ordinary citizens and another for presidents.
Trump was tried by a jury and convicted on 34 felony counts (New York State Unified Court System, 2024b).
He was elected president afterward.
The sentencing court imposed an unconditional discharge partly because of the extraordinary constitutional circumstances surrounding his return to office (New York State Supreme Court, 2025).
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has established absolute immunity for a president’s exercise of core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for other official acts (Trump v. United States, 2024).
Each individual development has a legal rationale.
The cumulative effect deserves considerably more attention.
Presidential immunity protects the office.
The pardon power protects executive discretion.
Prosecutorial discretion protects law enforcement.
Executive privilege protects presidential deliberation.
The separation of powers protects presidential independence.
Every one of those doctrines serves legitimate constitutional purposes.
But protections can accumulate.
At some point the question becomes whether the system has protected the presidency so thoroughly that it has become extraordinarily difficult to hold the president accountable when presidential power itself is abused.
That is where Congress enters the equation.
Impeachment was designed precisely because the Framers understood that ordinary criminal law would not always be sufficient to protect the republic from misconduct by powerful public officials (CRS, 2025).
If Congress refuses to use that power regardless of the evidence before it, the constitutional consequences extend far beyond Trump.
Every future president inherits the authority successfully claimed by previous presidents.
Every future president studies the boundaries previous presidents crossed without consequence.
And every future president learns something from what the other branches tolerated.
The ultimate danger is therefore not that Donald Trump possesses too much power.
It is that the office of the presidency itself may emerge from this era possessing power that no individual in a constitutional republic should possess without effective restraint.
Trump’s criminal conviction forces America to confront the question.
His presidency makes answering it unavoidable.
References
Congressional Research Service. (2025). Impeachment and the Constitution (R46013). U.S. Congress.
New York State Supreme Court. (2025). People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, Ind. No. 71543-23. New York County.
New York State Unified Court System. (n.d.). Common sentences.
New York State Unified Court System. (2024a). People v. Trump, 2024 NY Slip Op 24148.
New York State Unified Court System. (2024b). People v. Trump, 2024 NY Slip Op 24328.
New York State Unified Court System. (2024c). People v. Trump, 2024 NY Slip Op 50464(U).
Reuters. (2026a, April 21). Trump defense lawyers depart law firm Sullivan & Cromwell for Gibson Dunn.
Reuters. (2026b, August 21). Appeals court upholds block on U.S. Justice Department subpoenas to New York attorney general’s office.
Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024).
U.S. Constitution, art. II, § 3.
#DonaldTrump #PresidentialAccountability #PresidentialImmunity #ruleOfLaw #TrumpConviction #TrumpImpeachment #WPSNews -
The Unfinished Business of January 6: When Accountability Failed
By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 1, 2026
On January 6, 2021, the constitutional machinery of the United States was performing one of its most routine and most important functions: Congress was counting electoral votes and formally completing the transfer of presidential power.
Then the Capitol was breached.
The attack itself has been examined through congressional hearings, criminal prosecutions, court proceedings, an impeachment trial, and the final report of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Arguments continue over responsibility for security failures, the motivations of individual participants, Donald Trump’s intentions, and the political character of subsequent investigations. Those disagreements belong in the historical record.
But one fact cannot reasonably be disputed: Congress was forced to suspend the constitutionally prescribed certification proceeding while a violent mob occupied portions of the United States Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
Trump was subsequently impeached by the House for “incitement of insurrection.” The Senate acquitted him when 57 senators voted guilty and 43 voted not guilty—ten votes short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021a).
Four years later, Trump returned to the White House.
January 6 therefore presents an extraordinary constitutional problem.
This is no longer merely a question about what happened in 2021.
It is a question about what the United States decided—or failed to decide—about presidential accountability.
January 6 Did Not Begin on January 6
Reducing January 6 to several hours of rioting misses much of the constitutional issue.
The House Select Committee concluded after its investigation that Trump had engaged in a broader effort to overturn the lawful result of the 2020 presidential election. Its final report drew upon documents and testimony from numerous Republicans and members of Trump’s own administration and campaign, including former Justice Department officials, White House personnel, campaign officials, state officials, and others (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
The committee concluded that Trump continued promoting false allegations of widespread election fraud after courts rejected numerous challenges and after advisers told him that evidence did not support claims sufficient to reverse the election result (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
The committee also concluded that Trump pressured state officials concerning election results, participated in efforts involving alternative electoral certificates, sought assistance from Justice Department officials, and pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to count certain electoral votes during the January 6 joint session of Congress (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
Those were findings of a congressional committee, not criminal convictions.
That distinction matters.
Trump and his supporters have consistently rejected the committee’s interpretation, characterized the investigation as partisan, maintained that he genuinely believed the election had been compromised, and argued that his political speech and challenges to election results were constitutionally protected.
But disagreement with the committee does not erase the evidence it collected. The historical record includes testimony from Trump’s own officials describing repeated warnings that allegations being advanced about the election were unsupported (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
The constitutional issue therefore reaches beyond the riot itself.
It concerns an incumbent president’s response to losing an election.
The Vice President Was Asked to Do Something He Could Not Lawfully Do
Vice President Mike Pence became central to Trump’s effort.
Trump and allies argued that Pence possessed authority during the congressional electoral count to reject or delay electoral votes from contested states.
Pence rejected that argument.
The January 6 Committee concluded that Trump pressured Pence to refuse to count electoral votes despite being informed that the proposed action lacked lawful constitutional authority (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
That episode is significant because the peaceful transfer of presidential power depends upon losing candidates eventually accepting an institutional answer they do not like.
Candidates can demand recounts.
They can file lawsuits.
They can challenge election procedures.
They can seek investigations.
They can argue that election laws were violated.
But eventually the courts rule, states certify their results, electors vote, Congress counts those votes, and power changes hands.
The American constitutional system cannot function if an incumbent president possesses an effective unilateral veto over that process.
Then Came the Capitol
Trump addressed supporters near the White House on January 6 before Congress convened to count the electoral votes. He urged supporters to march to the Capitol while also telling them to make their voices heard “peacefully and patriotically.”
That language is an important part of Trump’s defense and should not be omitted from any serious assessment of his responsibility.
His defenders argue that this explicit reference to peaceful protest contradicts the allegation that Trump intended to provoke violence.
The House impeachment managers argued differently. They maintained that the speech had to be understood within the context of Trump’s months-long campaign challenging the election result, his rhetoric surrounding January 6, and pressure directed toward Pence and other officials (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).
The Select Committee later examined Trump’s December 19, 2020 announcement promoting the January 6 protest and concluded that his public messaging helped mobilize supporters who ultimately came to Washington (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
The Capitol was subsequently breached.
Members of Congress evacuated or sheltered.
Police officers fought rioters.
The electoral count stopped.
Whatever political terminology one prefers for January 6—riot, attack, insurrection, protest that became violent—the constitutional proceeding was physically disrupted.
That alone made January 6 unlike an ordinary political demonstration.
The 187 Minutes
One of the Select Committee’s most consequential findings concerned what Trump did after the Capitol had been breached.
The committee devoted an entire chapter of its final report to what it called “187 Minutes of Dereliction,” examining the period between the end of Trump’s Ellipse speech and his eventual video message telling supporters to leave the Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
According to the committee’s reconstruction, people around Trump urged him to intervene publicly while the violence continued. The committee concluded that Trump did not immediately issue an unequivocal public demand that rioters leave the Capitol and that he continued focusing on the electoral count while the attack unfolded (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).
Trump and his defenders dispute the committee’s characterization of his actions and intentions.
But the underlying constitutional question is difficult to avoid.
The president of the United States is not merely another political commentator watching a riot on television.
The president heads the executive branch.
When violence physically interrupts Congress while it performs a constitutional function, presidential responsibility is qualitatively different from that of an ordinary citizen.
That is why those 187 minutes matter.
Congress Impeached Him
The House acted one week later.
On January 13, 2021, the House approved H.Res. 24, impeaching Trump for incitement of insurrection. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting for impeachment (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).
Trump’s term ended January 20.
His Senate trial therefore occurred after he had left office, creating a constitutional dispute over whether the Senate retained jurisdiction to try a former president.
The Senate voted 56–44 that Trump remained subject to an impeachment trial for acts committed while president (U.S. Senate, 2021b).
The final vote was considerably more striking.
Fifty-seven senators voted guilty.
Forty-three voted not guilty.
Seven Republican senators joined every Democratic and independent senator voting to convict (U.S. Senate, 2021a).
Under almost any ordinary voting rule, 57–43 would be an overwhelming victory.
Impeachment is deliberately different.
The Constitution requires two-thirds of senators present to convict. Trump therefore was acquitted (U.S. Const. art. I, § 3; U.S. Senate, 2021a).
That acquittal must be respected as the formal constitutional result.
But understanding why some senators voted to acquit is equally important.
Even McConnell Said Trump Was Responsible
Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump.
Immediately afterward, however, McConnell delivered a remarkable speech.
He argued that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the events of January 6 while maintaining that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to convict someone who was no longer president (McConnell, 2021).
In other words, McConnell’s acquittal vote was not an endorsement of Trump’s conduct.
Other Republican senators similarly relied upon jurisdictional arguments in explaining their votes.
That distinction changes the historical meaning of the 43 acquittal votes.
The Senate did not produce 43 senators unanimously declaring that Trump’s conduct was acceptable.
It produced a coalition containing senators who rejected the House’s case on the merits and others who believed the Constitution prevented them from convicting a former president.
Whether that jurisdictional interpretation was correct remains disputed. The Senate itself had already voted 56–44 that it possessed jurisdiction (U.S. Senate, 2021b).
The consequence, however, was unmistakable.
Trump was not convicted.
He was not disqualified from future federal office.
And eventually he returned.
The Criminal Case Never Produced a Verdict
January 6 also entered the criminal justice system.
Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a federal indictment alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
The case never reached a jury verdict.
After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, prosecutors moved to dismiss the federal case because longstanding Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be federally prosecuted.
That distinction is critical to the historical record.
The dismissal did not constitute an acquittal after trial.
Nor did the indictment constitute proof of guilt.
The central federal criminal allegations concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election therefore ended without a jury determining guilt or innocence.
Once again, the institutional machinery of accountability reached Trump but did not produce a final adjudication of the underlying allegations.
Then Trump Pardoned the January 6 Defendants
Trump’s return to office transformed January 6 from historical controversy into a matter involving his second presidency.
On January 20, 2025—his first day back in office—Trump issued clemency covering nearly all defendants convicted of offenses related to January 6. He commuted the sentences of specified defendants, granted full pardons to others, and directed the attorney general to seek dismissal of remaining January 6 indictments (The White House, 2025).
The White House has defended those actions aggressively, describing January 6 defendants as victims of politically motivated prosecution and presenting Trump’s clemency as an effort to correct injustice and promote reconciliation (The White House, 2025).
The president unquestionably possesses broad constitutional pardon authority over federal offenses.
The question for this series is therefore not simply whether Trump could issue the pardons.
He could.
The larger question is what their issuance means for presidential accountability.
A president impeached over an attack connected to an effort to prevent the transfer of power returned four years later and used presidential authority to erase or reduce federal criminal consequences for many of the people prosecuted in connection with that attack.
That is constitutionally legal clemency.
It is also historically extraordinary.
Both things can be true simultaneously.
January 6 Cannot Simply Become Article III
There is a temptation for Trump’s opponents to say: January 6 was impeachable in 2021, therefore impeach him for January 6 again in 2026.
That would be a weak way to construct a third impeachment.
Trump has already been impeached and tried for his January 6-related conduct.
A credible new impeachment case should principally concern conduct undertaken during his current presidency.
January 6 instead performs another function.
It provides context.
It tells Congress what happened the last time institutions confronted Trump over alleged abuse of presidential power and an attempt to remain in office after losing an election.
It tells Congress what happened when the House impeached him.
It tells Congress what happened when 57 senators voted to convict him but the constitutional supermajority was not reached.
And Trump’s return to office tells Congress what an acquittal can ultimately mean.
The Cost of No Accountability
This is where January 6 becomes larger than Donald Trump.
The Constitution contains rules governing elections and transfers of power, but those rules ultimately depend upon human beings respecting and enforcing them.
Suppose a future president loses an election.
Suppose that president pressures state officials.
Suppose the president encourages alternative interpretations of electoral law designed to preserve his own power.
Suppose the president pressures the vice president.
Suppose supporters then disrupt the congressional proceeding that formalizes the president’s defeat.
What lesson does January 6 provide that future president?
The answer cannot simply be that everything worked out.
Yes, Congress reconvened.
Yes, the electoral votes were counted.
Yes, Joe Biden became president on January 20, 2021.
The immediate constitutional process survived.
But accountability is a different question.
Trump was impeached.
He was acquitted.
The federal criminal case against him never reached a verdict.
He regained the presidency.
And after returning to office, he exercised presidential clemency for nearly all federal defendants prosecuted for January 6-related offenses (The White House, 2025).
None of those individual events proves that the Constitution has failed.
Taken together, however, they establish a precedent that deserves serious consideration.
Constitutional restraints are partly constructed from expectations. Presidents know that certain actions will bring consequences because previous presidents saw those consequences imposed.
When consequences repeatedly fail to materialize, expectations change.
The danger is not necessarily that another president will reproduce January 6 exactly.
History rarely repeats itself that neatly.
The danger is that a future president will study what happened and conclude that the boundaries can be pushed farther.
Maybe Congress can be pressured more aggressively.
Maybe state officials can be threatened more directly.
Maybe federal law enforcement can be manipulated more effectively.
Maybe an election defeat can be resisted more systematically.
Maybe the next effort will be conducted by people who learned from the mistakes of the previous one.
That is the unfinished business of January 6.
America successfully transferred power on January 20, 2021.
What America never conclusively established was the price a president must pay for attempting to interfere with that transfer.
Donald Trump returned to office before the country settled that question.
Now the answer matters not only for him.
It matters for every president who comes afterward.
References
McConnell, M. (2021, February 13). Remarks following the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. United States Senate.
The White House. (2025, January 20). Granting pardons and commutation of sentences for certain offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3.
U.S. House of Representatives. (2021). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 24, 117th Cong.).
U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (2022). Final report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (H. Rept. 117-663). U.S. Government Publishing Office.
U.S. Senate. (2021a, February 13). Roll call vote 59: Article of impeachment against former President Donald John Trump.
U.S. Senate. (2021b, February 9). Roll call vote 57: Whether former President Donald John Trump is subject to a court of impeachment for acts committed while president.
#AmericanDemocracy #DonaldTrump #January6 #PresidentialAccountability #TrumpImpeachment #USConstitution #WPSNews -
The Constitutional Case: What Does “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” Actually Mean?
By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — August 25, 2026
Donald J. Trump has already been impeached twice. He was acquitted twice. He returned to the presidency anyway.
Now, during Trump’s second administration, members of Congress have again introduced articles of impeachment. That raises a question more important than whether Americans like or dislike Donald Trump: What conduct actually justifies removing a president under the Constitution of the United States?
That is where this series must begin.
The Constitution does not say that presidents may be impeached because they are unpopular, offensive, dishonest, incompetent, reckless, or politically objectionable. Nor does it say that impeachment requires prosecutors first to prove a violation of the federal criminal code. Article II establishes a different standard: the president may be removed following impeachment and conviction for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (U.S. Const. art. II, § 4).
Understanding those last five words is essential. Without that foundation, a discussion about impeaching Trump for a third time becomes little more than another partisan argument. With it, however, Congress and the public can ask a considerably more serious question:
Has Donald Trump used the powers entrusted to the presidency in ways sufficiently dangerous to the constitutional order to constitute high crimes and misdemeanors?
Impeachment Is Not an Ordinary Criminal Trial
One of the most persistent misconceptions about impeachment is that a president must commit an indictable criminal offense before Congress can act.
That is not the historical standard.
The Congressional Research Service notes that the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” descended from English parliamentary practice and historically encompassed serious abuses of governmental office, including corruption, misuse of public funds, neglect of duty, violations of legislative rights, abuses of official power, and betrayals of the public trust (Congressional Research Service [CRS], 2025).
Congress’s own Constitution Annotated reaches much the same conclusion. American impeachment practice has included misconduct involving abuse of official authority, behavior fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities of office, and use of office for improper or personal purposes (Library of Congress, n.d.-a).
That distinction is crucial.
A president could theoretically violate a criminal statute without committing an impeachable offense. Conversely, a president could commit a profound abuse of constitutional authority without the conduct fitting neatly within a particular criminal statute.
Alexander Hamilton anticipated precisely this problem in Federalist No. 65. He described impeachable offenses as arising from misconduct by public officials and from the “abuse or violation of some public trust” (Hamilton, 1788/1961).
The emphasis is on public trust.
Impeachment therefore exists not simply to punish wrongdoing but to protect constitutional government from an officeholder who abuses the extraordinary powers entrusted to that office (CRS, 2025; Library of Congress, n.d.-b).
The Framers Deliberately Rejected Impeachment for Mere Bad Government
There is an equally important limitation.
The Framers did not intend impeachment to become a congressional vote of no confidence whenever Congress disliked a president.
During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason proposed including “maladministration” among the grounds for impeachment. James Madison objected that such a broad term could effectively make a president dependent upon the pleasure of the Senate. The Convention instead adopted “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” thereby demanding something more serious than incompetence, policy disagreement, or ordinary political failure (CRS, 2025).
That principle matters enormously when discussing Trump.
Disagreeing with Trump’s immigration policies is not, by itself, grounds for impeachment.
Disagreeing with his tariffs is not grounds for impeachment.
Disliking his foreign policy is not grounds for impeachment.
Finding his rhetoric offensive is not grounds for impeachment.
Voting against him is politics.
Removing him through impeachment requires something more.
The constitutional issue begins when presidential conduct arguably crosses from controversial policy into abuse of governmental power, corruption, obstruction, violation of constitutional responsibilities, or betrayal of the public trust (Library of Congress, n.d.-a; CRS, 2025).
That is the line this series will investigate.
Donald Trump Is Already an Extraordinary Constitutional Case
No American president has occupied Trump’s position in constitutional history.
The House first impeached Trump on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted him on February 5, 2020 (U.S. House of Representatives, 2026; U.S. Senate, 2020).
The House impeached him again on January 13, 2021, this time for incitement of insurrection following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The Senate trial ended with 57 senators voting guilty and 43 voting not guilty—ten votes short of the 67 required for conviction (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021).
That vote deserves particular attention.
Trump was acquitted. That is the constitutional result and should be stated plainly.
But 57 senators—including seven Republicans—voted to convict him (U.S. Senate, 2021). The result therefore cannot accurately be described as a determination that Trump’s conduct was universally considered acceptable or harmless.
Indeed, some senators who voted to acquit explicitly condemned Trump’s behavior while arguing that the Senate lacked constitutional authority to convict a former president. Republican Senator John Thune, for example, said his acquittal vote should not be understood as exoneration of Trump’s conduct surrounding January 6 (Thune, 2021).
The Senate had separately voted 56–44 that a former president could constitutionally be tried for acts committed while president, but that procedural dispute remained central to the defense offered by several senators who ultimately voted for acquittal (U.S. Senate, 2021b).
That history matters because Donald Trump did something unprecedented afterward:
He returned to the presidency.
January 6 Is History, but It Is Not Irrelevant
January 6, 2021, cannot simply be recycled as a new impeachable offense in 2026.
Trump was already impeached for conduct associated with that event. The Senate already tried him. It acquitted him (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021a).
But that does not make January 6 irrelevant.
It becomes part of the historical record against which later presidential conduct can be evaluated.
If Congress investigates whether a president is abusing power, attempting to place himself beyond legal restraint, obstructing constitutional institutions, or using government authority against perceived enemies, previous confrontations with constitutional restraints may become relevant to understanding the seriousness and pattern of later conduct.
That is different from trying Trump twice for the same conduct.
The question in 2026 must be whether conduct during the current presidency independently meets the constitutional threshold for impeachment.
And Congress has already begun asking exactly that question.
A Third Impeachment Is No Longer Merely Hypothetical
On April 28, 2025, Representative Shri Thanedar introduced H.Res. 353, formally titled Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (U.S. House of Representatives, 2025).
The resolution proposed multiple articles involving allegations of obstruction and abuse of executive power, usurpation of congressional authority, violations of due process, attacks on freedom of expression and other abuses of presidential authority (U.S. House of Representatives, 2025).
The existence of an impeachment resolution does not prove the allegations contained within it.
That distinction is essential.
Members of Congress can introduce resolutions for political as well as constitutional reasons. An accusation contained in an article of impeachment is still an accusation until the underlying evidence is examined.
But H.Res. 353 demonstrates something important: the constitutional question this series is examining is already before Congress.
The issue is therefore not whether somebody could imagine impeaching Donald Trump again.
Some members of Congress already have.
The real question is whether the evidence supports them.
Criminality and Impeachability Are Different Questions
This distinction will become increasingly important as this series examines Trump’s broader legal history.
A criminal conviction does not automatically establish an impeachable offense. Likewise, the absence of a criminal conviction does not automatically establish that presidential conduct is constitutionally acceptable.
The Constitution treats the two processes separately. Article I specifically provides that impeachment judgments do not prevent the person convicted by the Senate from later being “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 7).
That separation is deliberate.
Criminal courts determine criminal liability.
The House determines whether an official should be impeached.
The Senate determines whether that official should be convicted and removed.
Those institutions answer related but fundamentally different questions (Library of Congress, n.d.-b).
For Donald Trump, therefore, criminal cases, civil judgments, January 6, presidential actions, executive orders, conflicts with Congress, confrontations with courts, foreign-policy decisions, and alleged uses of governmental power for personal or political purposes cannot simply be thrown into one enormous pile labeled “impeachment.”
Each must be examined individually.
The evidence must be separated from rhetoric.
The constitutional significance must be established.
And Trump’s defenses must be considered alongside the accusations.
Anything less would turn impeachment into precisely the partisan weapon the Framers feared.
The Question This Series Will Ask
Over the next nine Tuesdays, WPS News will examine whether a credible constitutional case exists for the third impeachment of Donald J. Trump.
The standard will not be whether Trump is a good president.
It will not be whether his policies are progressive or conservative.
It will not be whether Democrats despise him or Republicans defend him.
The standard will be whether documented conduct constitutes the kind of serious abuse of official power, corruption, obstruction, constitutional violation, or betrayal of public trust historically encompassed by “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (Hamilton, 1788/1961; CRS, 2025; Library of Congress, n.d.-a).
That requires evidence.
It also requires restraint.
Where allegations are unproven, they will be identified as allegations. Where courts have ruled, those rulings will be identified. Where constitutional scholars disagree, that disagreement will be acknowledged. Where the administration offers a substantive defense, that defense belongs in the record.
The purpose is not to manufacture an impeachment case.
The purpose is to determine whether one already exists.
The Cost of No Accountability
There is another question running underneath this entire series.
What happens if presidential misconduct repeatedly produces no lasting constitutional consequence?
Trump’s first impeachment ended in acquittal (U.S. Senate, 2020). His second impeachment ended in acquittal despite a 57-vote Senate majority favoring conviction (U.S. Senate, 2021a). He subsequently returned to the presidency.
That does not itself prove that either acquittal was constitutionally wrong. Senators had the authority to vote as they did.
But the cumulative precedent matters.
A constitution is not self-enforcing.
Words written on parchment cannot physically restrain a president. The separation of powers functions only when institutions exercise the powers given to them. Courts must issue judgments. Congress must legislate and conduct oversight. Elections must transfer authority. Executive officials must obey lawful constraints. And when an officer commits conduct serious enough to constitute a high crime or misdemeanor, Congress must decide whether impeachment is warranted.
The danger is larger than Donald Trump.
If conduct once considered disqualifying gradually becomes survivable, and conduct once considered an abuse of power becomes merely another partisan controversy, the practical limits surrounding the presidency change without a single word of the Constitution being amended.
Future presidents notice precedents.
They notice what previous presidents were allowed to do.
They notice which boundaries were enforced and which boundaries existed only on paper.
That is why impeachment was placed in the Constitution in the first place. It is not simply a mechanism for punishing an individual. It is one of the structural defenses intended to prevent executive power from overwhelming republican government (Library of Congress, n.d.-b; CRS, 2025).
The central question of this series is therefore not simply:
Has Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses?
There is a second question behind it:
If a president can repeatedly test the boundaries of constitutional power without meaningful accountability, what will those boundaries mean to the next president—and the president after that?
That may ultimately be the more important question.
References
Congressional Research Service. (2025). Impeachment and the Constitution (R46013). U.S. Congress. Congressional Research Service report
Hamilton, A. (1788/1961). Federalist No. 65. In C. Rossiter (Ed.), The Federalist Papers. New American Library.
Library of Congress. (n.d.-a). Overview of impeachable offenses. Constitution Annotated. Constitution Annotated: Overview of Impeachable Offenses
Library of Congress. (n.d.-b). Overview of impeachment clause. Constitution Annotated. Constitution Annotated: Overview of Impeachment Clause
Thune, J. (2021, February 13). Thune statement on conclusion of Senate impeachment trial. United States Senate. Senator Thune statement
U.S. House of Representatives. (2021, January 13). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 24, 117th Cong.). U.S. Government Publishing Office. H.Res. 24 official record
U.S. House of Representatives. (2025, April 28). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 353, 119th Cong.). H.Res. 353 official text
U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian. (2026). List of individuals impeached by the House of Representatives. House impeachment history
U.S. Senate. (2020, February 5). Senate floor activity: Wednesday, February 5, 2020. First Trump impeachment trial record
U.S. Senate. (2021a, February 13). Roll call vote 117th Congress—1st session: Vote 59. Senate impeachment verdict, 57–43
U.S. Senate. (2021b, February 9). Roll call vote 117th Congress—1st session: Vote 57. Senate jurisdiction vote, 56–44
U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3, cl. 7; art. II, § 4.
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