Constitution

Article II, Section 4: Impeachment

Section 4 allows removal of the President, Vice President and all civil officers for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

4Conservative Editors · Published November 8, 2026

The text

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

In plain English

This single sentence names who can be impeached and for what.

Who. "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States." That includes judges and Cabinet officers. Members of Congress are not generally treated as "civil Officers," and each house disciplines its own members under Article I, Section 5.

For what. "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Treason is defined in Article III, Section 3. Bribery was a well-known common-law offense. "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" is an older phrase from English impeachment practice, referring to serious abuses of public trust by officials, not merely ordinary crimes.

How. The House impeaches (Article I, Section 2) and the Senate tries the case (Article I, Section 3). Conviction requires a two-thirds vote, and the penalty is removal from office and possible disqualification from future office. Only then may the person face criminal charges in the regular courts.

The remedy is removal. Impeachment does not send anyone to jail and is not a criminal trial.

What the Founders said

The wording was settled late and with debate. On September 8, 1787, George Mason objected that "treason" and "bribery" alone were too narrow and proposed adding "maladministration." Madison feared that word would leave officers serving at the Senate's pleasure, and Mason replaced it with "other high crimes and misdemeanors," a phrase already used in English impeachments.

In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton explained that impeachable offenses "proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust," and that they are of a nature "which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL." He argued the Senate was the proper trial body because it could be impartial and had the standing to take on that responsibility.

Federalist No. 66 answered the objection that the Senate's role mixed legislative and judicial functions.

How the courts have read it

  • Nixon v. United States (1993): the Senate's authority to "try" impeachments is its alone; the Court would not review a challenge to the procedure of a committee that took evidence.

No federal court has defined "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Congress itself determines the standard in each case. Presidents Andrew Johnson (1868), Bill Clinton (1998) and Donald Trump (2019 and 2021) were impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before a House vote. Federal judges have been impeached and removed, but no President has been.

Why it matters now

Impeachment is a political remedy, designed for abuses that ordinary law cannot reach. Two dangers follow. One is a Congress that never uses it, leaving misconduct unchecked. The other is a Congress that uses it as a routine partisan weapon, so that every President faces charges whenever the opposite party holds the House. Both distort the design.

A conservative reading of the clause emphasizes the text. The listed offenses are grave, and the phrase "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors" gets its meaning from the company it keeps. Mason's failed word, "maladministration," would have made officials answerable for any policy the Senate disliked, and the Convention rejected it. A policy dispute, however sharp, is the business of elections, appropriations and oversight.

The two-thirds requirement is the main safeguard: removal needs broad agreement across party lines. That the bar has never been cleared for a President shows how high it is, and why careful use matters.

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