In the United States impeachment is commonly thought to only apply to the President, but this is not the case.
The Constitution states that: “The President, the Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States” are subject to impeachment. It is left unclear as to whether members of Congress are officers of the United States and in practice they have not been treated as such. However, one Supreme Court Justice and 14 Federal judges have been subjected to impeachment as well as two sitting Presidents.
Both Andrew Johnson
and William J Clinton
were successfully impeached by the United States House of Representatives, but contrary to popular belief, this did NOT result in them being removed from office. Impeachment is simply, as the definition implies, a statement of suspicion of wrongdoing similar to a legal indictment, or put more colloquially, a vote of no confidence. And impeachment is, in fact, a vote.
To impeach someone, say a President, the House of Representatives must vote based on the evidence presented to it in preference over all other matters before it regardless of the standard orders of priority. This vote requires only a simple majority of the members. If a simple majority of the members vote for Articles of Impeachment, then the person is “impeached” but not removed from office.
The next step belongs under the jurisdiction of the Senate. The Senate votes on whether to remove the impeached person from office. To successfully achieve this, a supermajority of 2/3 of the sitting members must vote to remove the individual from office. They can also impose additional penalties such as preventing the impeached person from ever running for public office in the future. To this day, no President has been successfully impeached and removed from office. However, seven Federal judges and three sitting governors have been both impeached and removed from office.
In my opinion, the INTENDED message of the flag is an expression in favor of REMOVING President Trump from office, and impeachment would certainly be the first step in that process.
However, as we have seen, to fully implement the intended meaning of the flag, additional measures, which are extremely unlikely with a House and Senate both currently controlled by Republicans who show little appetite for reining in the President regardless of how reckless, inflammatory, combative, provocative, and patently false many of his statements happen to be, would be required to remove President Trump from the White House. However, I am satisfied with the sentiment expressed, as is my Constitutional right, even if I would be hugely surprised should the advocated action ever occur.
Stay tuned for another installment that features an additional social/political flag.