what does trump's future in government look like?

By Julianne Giordano, 2023

Published 2/04/21

After two controversial impeachments, Donald Trump’s future in government is unknown. Possibilities loom of a ban on him holding office, but at the moment much is unknown.

On January 13, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump for the second time. When an official is impeached by the House of Representatives, formal charges are filed against them, accusing the individual of a crime. After the House votes to impeach, the process moves on to the Senate, where a trial is held to convict the official of the crime. If two-thirds of the Senate vote to convict the individual, the official is removed from office, banned from holding office again, and denied the benefits that they would have received after leaving office.

On January 6th, 2021, Trump was accused of inciting a riot on the Capitol, the day that the Senate was confirming Joe Biden’s electoral college votes. The event resulted in five people dead, while Senators and other staff had to flee to safety after the rioters entered and destroyed the Capitol. As a result of this display of violence, the House voted to impeach President Trump on January 13th. The following Senate trial was pushed back to February due to Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20th. Now there is a debate whether convicting him is constitutional, as he is already out of office. There is nothing in the constitution that states that an official cannot be convicted by the Senate after they have left office, and since President Trump was impeached by the House while he was still in office, the Senate is currently continuing the trial.

Some elected officials in the Senate have started pushing to censure Trump instead of convicting him in a trial. A censure would only be a statement of disapproval, and would not ban him from holding office again or take away his ex-presidential benefits. This idea is becoming more popular after only 5 out of 50 Republicans in the Senate voted that an impeachment trial would be constitutional, reducing the hope of a conviction. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are now pushing for a censure that would include Trump not being able to hold office again.

The impeachment trial is still set to be held in February, but seeing as only 55 Senators voted that a trial was constitutional, it is unlikely that two-thirds will vote to convict him. With Collins and Kaine still working on the specifics of their idea, the next couple of weeks will be critical to Trump's ability to hold a future position in the government.