United States (US) President Donald Trump has been impeached for abuse of power in a historic vote in the House of Representatives, setting up a Senate trial on removing him from office after three turbulent years.
By a 230 to 197 vote in the Democratic-majority House, the 45th US president on Wednesday became the third occupant of the White House in American history to be impeached.
But what happens next and who can replace Trump if the Senate convicts him?
According to AFP, the stage is set for the US president’s trial where the party of defendant Trump gets to set the rules and some senator, who will be jurors, are already delivering their verdicts.
Trump is expected to stand trial in the Republican-led Senate beginning in early January, and if convicted, he will be removed from office. While it would be an unprecedented outcome, it looks like a highly unlikely conclusion.
THE TRIAL:
If the procedures used in the 1868 and 1999 Senate trials of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton are repeated, Democratic prosecutors will enter the Senate to read out the charges against Trump.
“All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment,” the Senate sergeant at arms will admonish. This is the official who notifies the White House by summons that the president has been charged.
After that the 100 senators — 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats — will sit in judgement on one of the world’s most powerful men.
To remove him from office, 67 of them have to find him guilty — highly unlikely, given the Republicans’ numerical strength.
Their numbers also mean they get to decide if witnesses can be called, and which ones, how long prosecutors can take to present their case and how long the trial will last. If the Senate doesn’t want to try Trump at all, it can simply dismiss the case, by a simple majority vote.
And given Trump’s political hold over his party, the rules can be dictated by the White House itself.
WHO CAN SUCCEED TRUMP?
In the unlikely event that the Senate convicts and removes Trump from office, Vice President Mike Pence would become president and complete Trump’s term, which ends on January 20, 2021.
The 48th vice president of the US has previously also served as the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017 and a member of the US House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
He is the younger brother of U.S. representative Greg Pence.
