By Khushi Agarwal
Introduction
President of the country cannot be sued for his wrongful acts till he is in his office and serving the nation. This is done in order to provide respect for holding such a big position. Therefore, the President needs to be impeached first in order to make him liable for his wrongful acts. Same was done in the case of Donald John Trump.
Donald John Trump has been a 45th President of United States of America. He served the nation from 2017 to 2021. He fought from the Republic party and became the first President without any prior experience in Military or Government Service.
He also became the first President in the history of United States of America to face impeachment twice during his tenure. Three Presidents have been impeached so far in the history of United States of America including Donald Trump.
The first two Presidents to be impeached were Mr. Andrew Johnson and Mr. Bill Clinton, although none of them were convicted.
Impeachment process
Impeachment is a process of removing the President or the Vice President from his office in order to bring charges against them for the misconduct which has been alleged to have been committed.
First investigation is being held and Articles of impeachment, which is the list of charges against the President or Vice-President, is recommended to the House of Representative. Any member of the House can make a proposal of starting an impeachment process, however, it is up to the Speaker of the House to go ahead with it or not.
If the Speaker decides to proceed with the process, voting is being held in the House of Representatives and if the majority of the members vote for the impeachment, then the matter further goes to the Senate.
Senate conducts Trial and vote if the accused should be convicted or not. If two-third or more members vote in favour of conviction, then the President or Vice-President is removed from the office.
First Impeachment
Impeachment process against Donald Trump for the first time started in December 2019. Two Articles were recommended against him for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of congress”. The majority of the members of the House of Representatives voted for the impeachment and therefore, the matter went to the Senate.
The charges against him, however, could not gain two-third majority and as a result, he was acquitted of all the charges in February 2020.
This all happened after it was alleged that Trump tried to spoil the image of Joe Biden who was a political rival of him. It was alleged that Trump made a call to the Ukriane President, encouraging him to investigate CrowdStrike and his rival in order to stop him from winning next elections.
Second Impeachment
Second impeachment against him started in January 2021. His tenure was set to expire on 20 January 2021 before one week of which he was impeached from his office. Charge against him was incitement of insurrection.
In 2020 Presidential election, Joe Biden from Democratic Party defeated Donald Trump and successfully secured his position for the 46th President of United States of America. However, following this, on January 6, many supporters of the Joe Biden tried to disrupt the counting of the votes in order to overturn the success of Joe Biden.
United States Capitol which is situated in Washington D.C. was attacked and stormed by his supporters. Therefore, he was charged for “incitement of insurrection”. Also, ten members from the Republican Party voted in favour of his impeachment.
Those ten members warned for the clear and present danger if the former President is being left unchecked and said he must be made accountable for his acts.
Sexual assault charges
Besides this, former President, Donald Trump has also been accused with sexual harassment and rape. Around 22 women have made it clear that he has sexually assaulted them. This includes his ex-wife, Lvana, businesswomen, Jill Harth and many others.
Even a recording was made public during 2016 elections which made Trump’s behavior towards women more clear and many people turned against him due to that recording. However, he denied all those what was said in the recording.
Allegations of entering into the dressing room of beauty pageants were also made by Miss USA and Miss teen USA contestants. E. Jean Carroll who is a journalist in 2019 made allegations of rape against Trump. She said trump raped her in dressing room of the Department store in 1995 or 1996.
Defamation charges
The whole world faced a deadly pandemic which started in 2019 due the virus named as Corona virus. The virus originated in the Wuhan city of China.
Donald Trump has been sued by the Chinese-American civil rights group for calling the virus as “china virus”. It has been alleged that he has in his every speech and statement called the virus as “China virus” or have used any other similar terms such as “Asian virus’ or ‘Wuhan virus”,
These comments have defamed the community and have led to much hatred against Asian Americans. These have also caused sentimental distress among Chinese Americans and Asian Americans.
These comments have been alleged as xenophobic and racist. These biased comments were also being seen as baseless as the origin of the virus is still not proven.
Conclusion
Although, United States of America’s former President, Donald John Trump, has not been convicted but he has been charged with many civil and criminal cases. He has been charged for rape and sexual misconduct, causing riots and storming the Capitol, overturning Presidential elections, defaming Chinese and Asian communities, digging dirt on his political rival, Joe Biden and many more.
Besides all these, he has been known for attacking Black Lives Matter protests, saying and causing violence against Muslim community and so on. He conducted many attempts to somehow save his President’s position in 2020 Presidential elections.
References
nytimes.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
scotsman.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
en.as.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
thehindu.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
theguardian.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
businessinsider.in(last visited on 13 June 2021)
economictimes.indiatimes.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)
cnbc.com (last visited on 13 June 2021)