On 19 December 2019, US President Donald Trump became the third US President in history to be impeached. What does it mean to be impeached and could this happen in Singapore?
Impeachment: what is it?
Under the US Constitution, impeachment is one of the means by which the legislative body – Congress – can remove a sitting President. The US Congress is a bicameral legislature in that there are two levels of shared representation: while the House of Representatives looks after the interests of all residents of the states they represent, the Senate represents the interests of their state governments.
The House of Representatives decides on whether to impeach an official in this case, the President. This is akin to indictment, or the presentation of charges against the official. Thus, impeachment does not mean that the President is found guilty of the charges or that the President is removed, but that the criminal or impeachment trial against the President may commence.
Once the House of Representative votes to impeach the President, the Senate (the upper level of Congress) holds a trial to consider the grounds of impeachment. If the outcome of the trial finds the President guilty of the charges, then the Senate will subsequently vote on whether to remove the official from power.
While the Senate can decide to remove someone from power or to disqualify someone from holding future office, any sentencing, i.e., fines or imprisonment for crimes committed while in office are left to civil courts, i.e., judges.
Watch this YouTube video to learn how to impeach a US President.
What constitutes impeachment charges?
The US Constitution stipulates that a president can be impeached for reasons of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours. A president can also be impeached for abusing the powers of the office or for acting in a manner incompatible with the office.
Impeachment and conviction by Congress is a political punishment, not a criminal one. An impeachable offence is determined by the majority of the House of Representatives at any given moment in history.
The current House of Representatives approved two articles for Trump’s impeachment, namely for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. He is accused of pressuring Ukraine to dig up damaging information on one of his main competitors for the US 2020 Presidential Election, Joe Biden. By withholding military aid to Ukraine, he allegedly applied pressure to Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden and his son.
Impeachment in Singapore?
Under the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, either the Prime Minister or the Members of Parliament may bring an impeachment motion against the Singapore President on the grounds of:
- Intentional violation of the Constitution;
- Treason;
- Any offence involving fraud, dishonesty or moral turpitude; or
- Misleading the Presidential Elections Committee for the purpose of demonstrating eligibility to be elected as President
Singapore has no history of impeachment proceedings against its former or current President, nor has any Singapore President been removed from power. Similarly, in the US, while there have been three US Presidents (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump) who have been impeached, none of them were forcibly removed from power.
Even though there have been no Presidents who have been forcibly removed from power, impeachment remains the ultimate check against the President or the chief executive in the US. The impeachment power is part of the legislative body’s oversight and supervisory function over the executive’s actions, to ensure that there are no abuses of power, maladministration or other unconstitutional behaviour.
Questions for further personal evaluation:
- Why do you think it is important for the executive, i.e., the administrative arm of the government to be kept in check?
- Should there be any checks on the authority and actions of student leaders in school? How would this be regulated or enforced?
Useful vocabulary:
- ‘legislative’: having the power to make laws; relating to a legislature
- ‘treason’: the crime of betraying one’s country
Here are more related articles for further reading:
- CNBC: Why the stock market is nonchalant about Trump’s impeachment proceedings
“Markets are shrugging off the impeachment of President Donald Trump because he is not expected to be removed from office, and there should be no negative impacts on fiscal or monetary policy as a result.
Investors have instead focused on recent positive developments, like the trade agreement being worked out between the Trump administration and China, which should stop some strains on the economy and earnings.
…
“Investors have virtually ignored what’s going on in Congress. They care about the economy. They care about profits. They care about trade, and if they thought the president was in serious jeopardy of losing his job, they’d care,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth Advisors. “It’s just a disruption removing a president. It would probably undermine the value of the dollar, create some uncertainty and make [Vice President Mike] Pence the president.””
- Foreign Policy: Why impeachment would not solve US’s issues with Donald Trump
“For decades, the official verdict on the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon was that, as his successor Gerald Ford said on assuming office, “Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.” By that measure, Donald Trump’s presidency poses a special threat: The man who leads the country is demonstrably unfit, but there is no feasible way for the laws to remove him. That situation poses a uniquely grave threat to U.S. national interests.
The president’s sudden decision over the objections of his military advisors to endorse a Turkish invasion of Kurdish redoubts in northern Syria provides the most recent example of his erratic handling of foreign policy. Shock at the announcement was compounded by dismay at a presidential tweet on Monday morning justifying his decision in which he wrote that “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”
The political scientist Brendan Nyhan said on Twitter, “We’re heading toward mad king territory here, folks.” The grimmer truth is that we have been in mad king territory for some time. And U.S. institutions offer no solution because a combination of partisan politics and institutional dysfunction means there is no way to fix an imperial presidency if the president is not up to the task of running it.”