The Impeachment Process Explained: What Happens to Trump Now?

Everything you need to know about the next steps in Congress, and the consequences Trump might face

In the chamber of the United States Senate, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist swears in the Senate members to participate in the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton. Photo: Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

By Ed Kilgore

After President Trump’s Ukraine scandal drove a new wave of Democrats toward impeachment, on Tuesday afternoon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally announced that the House will launch a formal impeachment inquiry. It’s obviously a huge step, but there’s still much confusion about what exactly presidential impeachment means, how the process works, and what consequences Trump is likely to face. Since it’s only happened twice in U.S. history (to Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, with Richard Nixon avoiding a near-certain impeachment by resigning), it’s not the sort of thing you get a lot of detail on in high-school American history classes. Here’s what you need to know.

What Is Impeachment?

Impeachment is to official misconduct what an indictment is to crime: a statement of charges leading to a trial. The procedure for congressional impeachment of Executive branch officials (including but not limited to the president) was spelled out in some detail in the U.S. Constitution, as the official House of Representatives history observes:

Impeachment comes from…