The Chain of Command: Everything you need to know about mass impeachments

Early in the morning on November 9th, 2016; a former reality TV star, and National Real Estate Mogul who had a tendency to speak his mind without thinking much about the consequences, won the Federal Electoral College vote and was put in line to become the next President of the United States of America.  Later that day, one of the top Google searches was "How to impeach Trump".  To this day, starting the third official month of Mr. Trump's presidency, the most discussed topic in politics seems to continue to be how the US is going to impeach The Donald, so we can hold a special election and coronate Queen Hillary or Emperor Bernie.  Unfortunately, few people on both sides of the spectrum seem to understand what that actually entails, and what will come of it.  I'm going to avoid the topics of what the charges are that are planned to be levied against our sitting president, because all of the readers are going to believe what they want to believe.  What I want to discuss is how it works and what happens as it goes along.  

Impeachment is not firing a person from a presidency, as so many people in our country believe.  Impeachment is a lengthy process that can end with a public official being removed from office, but it's not an overnight decision.  It's actually a due process of law with two trials for elected officials, and like most criminal cases, it begins with a formal request for an investigation.  If an investigation should lead to sufficient enough evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor performed by an official while in office, the Articles of Impeachment are brought forward, and the fun begins.  It is at this point that the official is referred to as in the process of impeachment, even though most of the general population believes the official as being impeached when the investigation begins.  The next step is what is essentially an indictment, with the House of Representatives acting as the Grand Jury.  Should the indictment be reached, the official is considered to have been "Impeached", but the process of removal of office is far from over.  

If the Government is to go forward with removing an elected official from his office, the step after impeachment is a lengthy, drawn out trial by the Senate.  In any case other than the the President or Vice President being the defendant, the Vice President presides as the judge over the case.   In the cases of those two offices, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court takes on the duties.  Impeachment is a big deal in this country, and a hearing for a President has never made it past the required 2/3 vote of the present senators.  Nixon would have been the only one, but he resigned before he could be indicted by the house of Representatives.  

So assuming that the Impeachment of Trump does make it through the Senate, now it's time for the special Election day between Hillary and Bernie, right?  Well, not really.  Logically, an impeachment and conviction would leave the United States in the same position as an assassination.  The Vice President would take the Oath of Office and become the President.  Now, the fun part of this is that our friends on the right like to cite the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, saying you can impeach the Vice President and the Speaker becomes President, and then it goes down through the Cabinet.  The problem with that is, that's not quite the case either.  After Mike Pence takes the Oath of Office, he would have the option to let his term run out with a Vice Presidential Vacancy, or he can appoint a Vice President and present him to the Congress for a simple majority vote. That is stated in the relatively recent 25th Amendment (February 1967).  In today's dangerous political times, it would almost behoove him to have a person in mind already to present, as a successful impeachment would leave his adversaries with a full head of steam and ammo to go after him next.  At that point, the only way that Speaker Ryan would become next in line would be if Pence actually chose him to become the next Vice President and he passed the Congressional hearing and vote.  While it is great to see that so many people are paying attention to the Congressional acts that were put in place in case of an emergency, the Presidential Succession Act is just that, a backup plan.  That only arises in a case like the popular TV Series "Designated Survivor", where the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, while one of the last people on the Act, was one of the only surviving people on that Act after an act of terrorism caused an explosion in the Legislature during the inauguration.  

A nation without it's Head of State would suffer a moral blow, and would be weakened against it's enemies, both foreign and domestic.  Even though a void in the executive branch wouldn't shut down our government, we'd still be in a state of chaos and anarchy during the absence.  The founding fathers knew that, and that's why they built things into the Original Articles of the Constitution that would prevent us from being more than a couple of days without an executive.  Our legislators also figured that out and that's why they built even more safeguards into law to make sure that we always had a sitting President, no matter what.  If we need to move forward with an impeachment hearing, that's what is going to be done, but remember as you do that you will be removing the man from the office, and the next time you'll be able to attempt to remove the Republican Party from office will be in 2020, no matter how many impeachments you attempt.