Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
The launching of an "official impeachment inquiry" into President Donald Trump's conduct has sailed America into largely uncharted waters.
While there have been demands for the impeachment of many presidents, just three previous ones – Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – have faced formal impeachment inquiries, and the Senate convicted none of them. None of those three sought reelection.
After Johnson's acquittal, he was denied his party's presidential nomination. Nixon and Clinton were in their second terms already and could not run for reelection.
Trump, however, is already doing so.
As a scholar of American legal and political history, I have studied the precedents for dealing with this strange conundrum. A little-known wrinkle in the Constitution might allow Trump to be reelected president in 2020 even if he is removed from office through the impeachment process.
The constitutional framework
At the time the Constitution was ratified in 1788, many of its authors regarded impeachment as an improvement over the violent methods often used in Europe to get rid of corrupt rulers. Nonetheless, they recognized the dangers that impeachment would always present.
As if commenting on the current moment, Alexander Hamilton noted in 1788, that it will "agitate the passions of the whole community, and … divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases, it will connect itself with preexisting factions and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or the other."
The Founders were careful about defining and regulating this dangerous power. They gave the House of Representatives "the sole Power of Impeachment," and specified that the Senate "shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments," with a two-thirds majority required for conviction. They specifically prevented the president's pardon power from reversing impeachments.
They also limited the possible punishments that the Senate may impose to "removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States." But they only required that an impeached and convicted official "be removed from office" – but did not mandate that the person also be disqualified from holding a future office.
Nowhere does the Constitution define the standards for disqualification. Moreover, the Senate has declined to establish a standard.
But, as Ohio State University law professor William Foley points out, Senate procedures require separate votes to convict someone of an impeachable offense and to impose a disqualification penalty.
So even if President Trump were impeached and convicted, there is the possibility that he could be reelected to the same office from which he had been removed.
Impeachment and disqualification
Of the 17 historic impeachment proceedings brought against judges and other officials who rank lower than president, 14 went to trial in the Senate and eight resulted in a guilty verdict.
In only three of those cases did the Senate bar – or "disqualify" – those who were convicted from holding office in the future.
First was West H. Humphreys, a federal district judge from Tennessee at the start of the Civil War, who refused to hold court and announced his support for the Confederacy. He was impeached and disqualified on charges of neglecting his judicial duties and waging war against the government of the United States.
In 1913, Robert W. Archbald, an associate judge of the United States Commerce Court, was convicted of the more prosaic offense of doing business with litigants before his court, and forever barred from holding office. The Senate found that he "willfully, unlawfully, and corruptly took advantage of his official position."
The third instance of removal and disqualification occurred in 2010. In that case, Congressman Adam Schiff, now one of the key players in the Trump impeachment hearings, took the lead in prosecuting Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of Louisiana. Porteous was found guilty of receiving cash from lawyers who had dealings in his court, of fraudulent dealings with creditors and of misleading the Senate during his confirmation proceedings.
History also reveals one curious instance of impeachment without disqualification, in which the person convicted ran for and won another office. Federal district judge Alcee Hastings of Florida was removed from office in 1989 for perjury and conspiring to solicit a bribe. Since 1993, he has been representing a Florida district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Other people charged with perjury and bribery, as well as crimes like tax evasion, also have been convicted but not disqualified. In the end, it's hard to say what distinguishes those cases from the others.
What the Senate might decide
Professor Foley writes that if President Trump is impeached and convicted, the Senate should follow the Hastings precedent and not prevent him from running again for office. In Foley's view, the American electorate should "decide whether Trump, despite his attempt to subvert the system, should have another chance."
Given the timing of an impeachment vote in the House and a Senate trial, a verdict could be rendered with the 2020 general election campaign in full swing, or even between Election Day and inauguration. This would create serious doubt and deep division about whether a president removed from office could legitimately take the oath of office again. Such a result might, as the president himself tweeted, "cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal."
To avoid that severe a split, uphold the Founders' view of impeachment and minimize the perils of division that they feared, the Senate should, if the president is convicted, heed Alexander Hamilton's advice and disqualify him too, ensuring that impeachment and removal from office results in "a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence and honors and emoluments of … (this) country."
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.