The House impeaches. The Senate then holds a trial on those charges to decide whether the officer — a president or any other federal official — should be removed and barred from holding federal office in the future.
Any member of the House can seek to start the process by proposing a resolution of impeachment. It would be referred to the House Judiciary Committee, which decides whether to investigate the allegations. If it does so, the committee would then vote on whether grounds for impeachment exist. A yes vote would report one or more charges, known as articles of impeachment, to the full House.
When Gerald Ford was a member of the House, he famously defined an impeachable offense as"whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." In other words, impeachment and conviction by Congress is a political punishment, not a criminal one. The Senate vote is conducted in open session, and a two-thirds majority is required for conviction. If the Senate votes to convict, the public official on trial is immediately removed from office. The Senate can conduct a separate vote on whether to disqualify the official from ever again holding federal office, which requires a simple majority.
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