impeachment

          You may remember all of the media coverage of the trial to impeach Bill Clinton, back when he was president. The Constitution of the United States ( Article I, Section 3 ) defines impeachment as removal from office. A person impeached and convicted may be removed from office, and barred from holding any other office. If a president is impeached but not convicted,  nothing else happens. When a president is impeached because he is suspected of a crime ( the Constitution , Article II, Section 4, lists bribery, treason, and  high crimes and misdemeanors as impeachable offenses),  then he may also be tried for the crime, in an ordinary trial, just as any other defendant would be, whether or not  his impeachment trial ends in a conviction. This has never happened in the United States.
     When Richard Nixon was president, the Congress was deliberating whether or not to impeach him for "high crimes and misdemeanors" when he resigned from office. He could not be impeached, since he was no longer president. He was not tried for any crime, because Gerald Ford, the next president, granted him a pardon. Whether a pardon is valid if a person has not been accused of a specific crime was never really put to the test. There was little objection, as people were too relieved to be back to a normal state of affairs, with a president who was not accused of anything.
    

some of us still get worked up thinking about it

     You may have read about the Watergate scandal of the 1970's, or perhaps you have seen All the President's Men. Some people who worked for the committee to re-elect the president--C.R.E.E.P ( really, I'm not making this up ) broke into a psychiatrist's office, and were caught. They were trying to get some dirt on the man who had "leaked" classified government documents to the press.
    Some people wanted to prove that the president, Richard Nixon, had known about the break-in, or that it had been done at his direction. The Watergate hearings were on TV for an entire summer. Some of the president's  aides went to prison. The president resigned his office on national TV.
     When something happens to the president, the vice-president becomes the new president. Everyone knew that--that's what happens when a president dies while in office. But a president had never resigned before .The odd thing was that the vice-president, Spiro Agnew, had already resigned, because of a different scandal. President Nixon had appointed a new vice-president, Gerald Ford, who was confirmed by the senate. So Gerald Ford became the president, even though he had not received a single vote.