Grounds for Impeachment: Treason, Bribery, and High Crimes

The grounds for impeachment are fixed by the Constitution at three categories: treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. Article II, Section 4 provides that “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”¹ Two of those categories are narrow criminal concepts. The third is deliberately broad, and it is where nearly every impeachment fight has actually been decided.

Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as arising from “the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust,” calling them “political” offenses “as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”² Impeachment is not a criminal prosecution and does not require that the official have committed a crime. It is a constitutional remedy for misuse of office.

Treason

Treason is the only offense the Constitution itself defines. Article III, Section 3 limits it to levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies, and conviction requires either two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court.³ The evidentiary bar is extraordinarily high. No president has ever been impeached on treason charges. The one clear case is federal judge West H. Humphreys, impeached and removed in 1862 after he joined the Confederacy without resigning from the bench.⁴

Bribery

Bribery is the corrupt bargain at the core of public corruption: a public official trades a government action for something of private value. Federal criminal law under 18 U.S.C. § 201 punishes bribery of public officials with up to fifteen years in prison and potential disqualification from federal office.⁵ No president has been impeached on bribery charges, but judges have been. Judge Alcee Hastings was impeached and removed in 1989 on charges that included conspiring to solicit a bribe, and Judge G. Thomas Porteous was removed in 2010 for accepting bribes and making false statements.⁴

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

The phrase does not mean ordinary crimes. It came out of centuries of English parliamentary practice, where it referred to offenses against the state committed by people in positions of power. At the time of ratification it was understood to cover “uniquely political offenses, or misdeeds committed by public officials against the state.”²

An impeachable offense does not have to violate any criminal statute. At the Virginia ratifying convention, James Iredell, later a Supreme Court justice, explained that impeachment “was calculated to bring [offenders] to punishment for crime which is not easy to describe, but which every one must be convinced is a high crime and misdemeanor against government.”² The Constitution Annotated summarizes the working scope this way: impeachment “has been used to remove government officers who abuse the power of the office; conduct themselves in a manner incompatible with the purpose and function of their office; or misuse the office for improper or personal gain.”⁶

Congress has treated the category as covering several broad types of misconduct:

Abuse of power — using the authority of office for personal or political gain rather than the public interest.
Obstruction of justice or of Congress — interfering with lawful investigations, destroying evidence, intimidating witnesses, or categorically defying congressional subpoenas.
Betrayal of public trust — conduct incompatible with the function of the office, including corruption and misuse of government resources.
Neglect of duty — willfully failing to perform the core obligations of the position.

Because no court reviews whether the Senate applied the right standard, each generation of senators ultimately decides what qualifies.

What Has Actually Been Charged

The clearest picture of what “high crimes and misdemeanors” means in practice comes from what the House has actually voted on. Four presidents have been impeached, none convicted.

Andrew Johnson (1868). The House approved eleven articles, most centered on Johnson’s removal of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The charges accused him of unlawfully issuing orders, conspiring to seize government property, and appointing a replacement without Senate consent.⁷ The Senate fell one vote short of conviction.

Bill Clinton (1998). The House approved two articles: perjury before a criminal grand jury and obstruction of justice in the same investigation.⁸ Two other articles, covering perjury in a civil deposition and abuse of office, were voted down. The Senate acquitted.

Donald Trump, first impeachment (2019). The House charged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The abuse article alleged that Trump pressured Ukraine to announce investigations that would benefit his reelection by conditioning official government acts on that announcement. The obstruction article charged him with directing executive branch agencies and officials to categorically defy congressional subpoenas.⁹ The Senate acquitted on both counts.

Donald Trump, second impeachment (2021). A single article charged incitement of insurrection following the January 6, 2021 breach of the Capitol. It detailed Trump’s repeated false claims about the election, his speech urging supporters to “fight like hell,” and his earlier call to Georgia’s secretary of state pressuring him to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s election results.¹⁰ A Senate majority voted to convict, short of the required two-thirds.

Richard Nixon is often mentioned alongside impeached presidents but resigned in August 1974 before the full House voted on the articles recommended by the Judiciary Committee, which included obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.

The pattern across the four completed presidential impeachments is consistent with the broader working definition: abuse of power, obstruction, perjury, and interference with official processes. Only Clinton’s articles rested on a specific criminal statute; the rest reached beyond ordinary criminal law.

What Does Not Count

The framers explicitly rejected making bad government a ground for impeachment. During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason proposed adding “maladministration” to the list. James Madison objected that “so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate.” Mason withdrew the proposal and substituted “high crimes and misdemeanors.”¹¹

That exchange is the clearest evidence of what the framers meant to exclude. Poor judgment, incompetence, unpopular decisions, and policy disagreements between Congress and the president do not meet the standard. The point of rejecting “maladministration” was to keep impeachment from functioning as a parliamentary vote of no confidence. The president serves a fixed term, and disagreeing with how that president governs is what elections are for.

The line between “abuse of power” and “policies we disagree with” is inherently political, and every impeachment in American history has been contested on exactly those terms. The Constitution provides no referee other than the senators who cast the votes.

Who These Grounds Apply To

The same grounds apply to everyone the Constitution reaches, but the reach is limited. Article II, Section 4 covers the president, vice president, and “all civil officers of the United States.” That plainly includes federal judges, and historical practice confirms it includes cabinet secretaries and other executive branch officials.¹² Most impeachments in American history have actually been of federal judges; eight have been removed by the Senate on charges ranging from intoxication on the bench and tax evasion to bribery and perjury.⁴

Two groups are outside impeachment’s reach. Military officers have never been impeached; Justice Joseph Story concluded that “civil officers” was used “in contradistinction to military, to indicate the rights and duties relating to citizens generally,”¹³ and military personnel are subject to courts-martial instead. Members of Congress are also outside impeachment. The Senate dismissed the 1799 impeachment case against Senator William Blount for lack of jurisdiction,¹⁴ and each chamber instead disciplines and expels its own members by two-thirds vote under Article I, Section 5.¹⁵

1
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 4 – Impeachment
2
Congress.gov. ArtII.S4.4.2 Historical Background on Impeachable Offenses
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Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution Article III Section 3
4
Federal Judicial Center. Impeachments of Federal Judges
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 201 – Bribery of Public Officials and Witnesses
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Congress.gov. ArtII.S4.4.1 Overview of Impeachable Offenses
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The American Presidency Project. Articles of Impeachment Exhibited by the House of Representatives
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Congress.gov. ArtII.S4.4.8 President Bill Clinton and Impeachable Offenses
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Congress.gov. H.Res.755 – Articles of Impeachment Against Donald John Trump
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Congress.gov. H.Res.24 – Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States
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U.S. Government Publishing Office. Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment
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Congress.gov. ArtII.S4.2 Offices Eligible for Impeachment
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Cornell Law School. Offices Eligible for Impeachment
14
U.S. Senate. Impeachment Trial of Senator William Blount
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Congress.gov. ArtI.S5.C2.2.1 Overview of Expulsion Clause