# Trump Second Impeachment The fourth presidential impeachment in U.S. history and the only second impeachment of any U.S. president — making Trump the only U.S. president impeached twice. Triggered by Trump's role in inciting the [[January 6 Capitol Attack]]. The most bipartisan presidential impeachment in U.S. history (10 House Republicans for the article; 7 Senate Republicans for conviction) — and still acquitted. ## Timeline **November 3, 2020** — Election Day. Biden defeats Trump. **November 2020 – January 5, 2021** — Trump and allies pursue [[Stop the Steal]] through litigation, public pressure on state officials (see [[Donald Trump - find 11780 votes]] of January 2, 2021), the [[Fake Electors Scheme]], and the [[Eastman Memo]] strategy targeting [[Mike Pence]]'s certification role. **January 6, 2021** — At a Save America rally on the Ellipse, Trump exhorts supporters to "fight like hell" and march to the Capitol while the Joint Session of Congress is certifying electoral votes. The [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] follows. Five people die in connection with the attack; ~140 police officers are injured. Pence and members of Congress are evacuated as rioters chant "Hang Mike Pence." Trump waits hours before issuing any call to disperse. Capitol is cleared by evening; certification resumes overnight; Biden's win is certified at 3:42 AM ET. **January 11, 2021** — House Democrats introduce a single article of impeachment: "Incitement of Insurrection." Lead author: Rep. [[Jamie Raskin]] (D-MD), constitutional law professor. **January 13, 2021** — Just one week after the attack, the U.S. House votes to impeach Trump for the second time: - **House vote**: 232–197 - All 222 Democrats vote yes - **10 Republicans vote yes** — the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in U.S. history: - Rep. [[Liz Cheney]] (WY) — House GOP Conference Chair (#3 GOP House leadership) - Rep. [[Adam Kinzinger]] (IL) - Rep. [[John Katko]] (NY) - Rep. [[Fred Upton]] (MI) - Rep. [[Jaime Herrera Beutler]] (WA) - Rep. [[Dan Newhouse]] (WA) - Rep. [[Anthony Gonzalez]] (OH) - Rep. [[Tom Rice]] (SC) - Rep. [[David Valadao]] (CA) - Rep. [[Peter Meijer]] (MI) **January 20, 2021** — Biden inaugurated. Trump leaves office without conceding. Senate Majority Leader [[Mitch McConnell]] declines to call the Senate back into session before inauguration day, ensuring the trial occurs *after* Trump leaves office — a procedural decision McConnell would later use as part of his rationale to vote not guilty. **January 25, 2021** — House delivers the article to the Senate. **February 9, 2021** — Senate trial begins. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) presides as President pro tempore. Chief Justice [[John Roberts]] did not preside: the Constitution assigns the Chief Justice only when "the President of the United States is tried," and Trump was no longer president. Roberts gave no public explanation. The Senate first votes 56–44 that the trial is constitutional (six Republicans join all Democrats). Two weeks earlier, on January 26, a Rand Paul point of order against trying a former president had been tabled only 55–45 — just five Republicans voting to table — signaling that conviction was out of reach. **February 9–13, 2021** — Trial proceedings. House managers present extensive video evidence of the attack and Trump's pre-attack speeches and tweets. Defense team (Bruce Castor, David Schoen, Michael van der Veen) presents a brief, widely panned defense focused on procedural objections and free-speech framing. **February 13, 2021** — The Senate first votes **55–45 to allow witnesses** (Republicans Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Sasse and Graham joining Democrats), prompted by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler's account of a Trump–McCarthy call during the attack. Within hours the sides agree instead to enter her statement into the record and call no witnesses. The Senate then votes to acquit: - **57 guilty, 43 not guilty** — 10 votes short of the 67 needed to convict. - **7 Republicans vote guilty**, the most bipartisan vote for an impeachment conviction in U.S. history: - Sen. Richard Burr (NC) — retiring; no future electoral exposure - Sen. Bill Cassidy (LA) - Sen. Susan Collins (ME) - Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK) - Sen. Mitt Romney (UT) — also voted guilty in the first impeachment - Sen. Ben Sasse (NE) — would resign Senate seat in 2023 - Sen. Pat Toomey (PA) — retiring; no future electoral exposure McConnell, having voted not guilty on jurisdictional grounds, then delivers a floor speech declaring Trump "practically and morally responsible" for the attack. ## Why this matters **1. Trump becomes the only twice-impeached U.S. president.** This is the single hardest fact to overstate. The impeachment process — designed by the framers as a near-nuclear constitutional remedy — produced two impeachments of one president inside fourteen months. Both ended in acquittal. Trump returned to the presidency in 2025. The structural lesson is that the Senate trial mechanism, in a polarized 50-50 environment, cannot produce conviction even on near-overwhelming evidence with bipartisan defection. The constitutional accountability mechanism the framers designed has been functionally retired by partisan polarization. **2. The 10/7 Republican defections were the high-water mark.** Ten House Republicans and seven Senate Republicans broke with Trump on the strongest possible evidence — a recorded, video-documented, on-the-record incitement of an attack on the Capitol that killed five people. Of those 17 Republicans, only five remain in office as of October 2026, and two of those are leaving: Cheney, Herrera Beutler, Meijer and Rice lost 2022 primaries; Kinzinger, Gonzalez, Katko and Upton retired in 2022; Burr, Toomey and Sasse left the Senate in 2023 and Romney in 2025; Cassidy was eliminated in his May 2026 primary and Newhouse is not seeking re-election, leaving Collins, Murkowski and Valadao. The political cost of the defection was paid almost exclusively by the defectors. This established the operative norm of Trump's 2021–2024 reorganization of the GOP: ideology and conduct were secondary to loyalty. **3. Disqualification was within reach.** Conviction would have permitted a separate Senate vote to disqualify Trump from holding future federal office under Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution. The acquittal foreclosed that path. McConnell's choice to delay the trial until after Trump left office, then vote not guilty on jurisdictional grounds (claiming the Senate could not try a former president), was the operative procedural maneuver that preserved Trump's 2024 candidacy. **4. The "incitement" theory is narrower than the framers' standard.** The article specifically charged "incitement of insurrection" — a term with [[First Amendment]] implications and a high evidentiary bar. The article did not charge the broader pattern of conduct (the [[Fake Electors Scheme]], the pressure on Pence, the [[Eastman Memo]] strategy, the [[Donald Trump - find 11780 votes]]) that the House Select Committee on January 6 would later document. The narrow theory was a tactical choice for the rushed timeline; it left much of the most damning evidence for later proceedings (the [[J6 Committee]], the Special Counsel investigation, the Georgia RICO case). **5. The McConnell paradox.** McConnell voted not guilty, then publicly declared Trump morally responsible for the attack. This rhetorical maneuver — "guilty but unconvictable" — became the operative GOP institutional posture: the conduct was real, it was bad, but it was not impeachable. The same logic was deployed against the J6 Committee, against the Special Counsel investigation, and against the [[Georgia RICO Case]]. McConnell would later support Trump's 2024 nomination. ## Aftermath The House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol — chaired by [[Bennie Thompson]] with [[Liz Cheney]] as vice chair — convened in 2021 and produced an 800+ page final report in December 2022 documenting the broader scheme. Special Counsel [[Jack Smith]] was appointed in November 2022 and brought federal charges in *United States v. Trump* (D.D.C.) and *United States v. Trump* (S.D. Fla., classified docs). The [[Georgia RICO Case]] (Fulton County, Fani Willis) was filed August 2023. By Trump's 2024 victory, the federal cases had been delayed past the election by the Supreme Court's *[[Trump v. United States]]* (2024) presidential immunity decision and various appellate moves. Both federal cases were dismissed without prejudice on November 25, 2024, at Smith's request. The Manhattan conviction ended in an unconditional discharge on January 10, 2025, and the Georgia RICO case was dismissed on November 26, 2025 (see [[Trump Indictments Timeline]]). The question of whether Trump should have been disqualified for January 6 — the question the second impeachment trial declined to answer — became academically settled in *Trump v. Anderson* (2024), which held that states cannot enforce Section 3 of the [[Fourteenth Amendment]] against federal candidates. See [[Trump Impeachments Timeline]] for the meta-pattern. ## Related - [[January 6 Capitol Attack]] — the conduct at the heart of the article - [[Trump First Impeachment]] — the first impeachment, fourteen months earlier - [[Trump Impeachments Timeline]] — the meta-pattern aggregator - [[Stop the Steal]] — the broader campaign - [[Fake Electors Scheme]] — companion legal architecture - [[Donald Trump - find 11780 votes]] — operative conduct between the two impeachments