Can Trump be removed from office after the US midterm elections?

With Americans set to vote in the midterm elections on November 3, the question now being asked is whether President Donald Trump could be removed from office if the opposition Democrats take control of Congress. The November 3 vote will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate — one third of the upper chamber. Both chambers are currently controlled by Trump's Republican Party, but it has been predicted that this majority will be lost and that the opposition Democrats will take control of both houses. If that happens, President Trump would be in very serious danger, and the first thing a Democratic-controlled Congress is expected to pursue is his removal from the presidency. This is not any secret Democratic agenda — it is being said openly. On the other side, Republicans are also presenting this election as being about Trump. They say the vote is tied to ending or preserving Trump's rule: if people want to keep him in power, they should not vote Democrat. Either way, the November 3 result will amount to a verdict on Trump's future. If the opposition Democrats do win control of both houses, what can be done — or what will be done — to impeach President Trump and remove him from office? The US Constitution gives this power to Congress. So the party that holds the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives can do it. A sitting president can be impeached, and can also be removed from office. Impeachment is not removal from office. Impeachment is the formal filing of charges against a sitting president and the holding of an investigation. Removal from office means stripping him of all powers and ejecting him from the White House. Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House. But such a simple majority cannot remove a president. To find a president guilty and remove him from office, a two-thirds vote of the Senate — the upper house — is required. That is at least 67 votes. That number is reached if Democrats win 67 of the Senate's 100 seats. If that many seats are not obtained, the objective could still be achieved if some Republicans also turn against Trump and support his removal. That is easy to say, but it is not something easy to do. In America's 250-year history, 45 people have served as president, and the man currently in the presidency, Donald Trump, is the 45th. For none of them have both of those stages ever been implemented — meaning no president has been impeached, convicted and removed from office. But three presidents in total have been impeached, meaning formal charges were filed and an investigation was conducted in Congress. They are Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998. Donald Trump has been impeached twice — in 2019 and 2021, during his first term. So Trump is the only president ever to have been impeached twice. Every president impeached so far has been acquitted by the Senate, so the removal stage was never activated. Besides those three presidents, a decision was also taken to impeach another president — Richard Nixon in 1974 — but he resigned from office before the impeachment vote was held. Either way, President Trump still holds a unique record as the first president to be impeached twice. If the Democrats win control of Congress in this midterm election and impeach Trump, that would make three times — a hat-trick completed, and another record set. Although the Senate acquitted him on the two previous occasions, if the Democrats win a super-majority there this time, it is certain that a guilty verdict would be delivered against Trump. The day on which the people will decide whether or not to hand that power to the Democrats is, as stated earlier, November 3. Trump also appears to realise his precarious situation. Ahead of the midterm elections, he is now saying he will not launch a new attack on Iran — because a majority of Americans dislike that war, and he has come to realise it was a mistake on his part. But Trump is Trump. He is quickest to do the very things he promised not to do. So it is not impossible that attacks could begin even before the midterm elections.