Was Bill Clinton Really Impeached?
American Crime Story season 3 tells the story of Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings. Here’s what really happened to the former president.
American Crime Story season 3 tells the story of Monica Lewinsky and the Bill Clinton impeachment scandal, but was the president ever fully impeached? The legislative process for presidential impeachment is complicated and rarely used, and despite it being mentioned frequently in the news during the Trump presidency, many people still don’t understand how impeachment works. After all, only a few presidents throughout all of U.S. history have ever been impeached.
The process of U.S. presidential impeachment can be broken down essentially into two parts. The first, the approval of the articles of impeachment, takes place in the House of Representatives. The articles, which outline what offenses the president is being accused of, are introduced, and then voted on, with a simple majority being needed for the articles of impeachment to be approved. After approval, the impeachment proceedings move to the Senate, where the actual impeachment trial occurs. The Senate requires a two-thirds majority vote to convict a sitting president of the articles of impeachment, at which point the president would be removed from office.
Impeachment only refers to the first part of that process – the approval of the articles of impeachment. Throughout U.S. history, three presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump (twice). However, none of those impeachments led to convictions. The only instance of a…
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