Overall, costs associated with illegal immigrants is much higher for state and local governments than the federal government.
FAIR’s data also includes the offset of taxes paid by illegal immigrants, though the numbers are much lower. In the state and local column, they are $3.5 billion.
States pay $89 billion, Uncle Sam $46 billion. (135 BILLON FEDERAL AND STATE INCLUDED)
3.5 BILLON TAX’s PAID BY ILLEGALS
The states paying the most to care for illegals:
1. California - $23,038,125,353 (BILLION) (2.2 Million est ILLEGALS IN STATE)
2. Texas - $10,994,614,550 (BILLION) ( 1.6 million est. ILLEGALS IN STATE)
3. New York - $7,489,141,357 (BILLION) (725,000 est. ILLEGALS IN STATE)
4. Florida - $6,290,429,108 (BILLION) (775,000 est. ILLEGALS IN STATE)
5. New Jersey - $4,466,838,574
6. Illinois - $3,220,767,517
7. Georgia - $2,487,719,503
8. North Carolina - $2,437,965,113
9. Maryland - $2,378,996,947
10. Arizona - $2,314,131,964
In June 2019, there were 60,849 homeless people, including 14,589 homeless families with 21,295 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. Families make up nearly three-quarters of the homeless shelter population. When we hear AMERICA FIRST!!!!!
New Yorkers entered the city's affordable housing lotteries 4,654,603 times last year. Only 7,857 "won" the right to an apartment with below-market rent.
City Relaxing Requirements for Undocumented to Enter Affordable Housing Lottery
By Michael Herzenberg New York City
PUBLISHED 7:36 AM ET Aug. 21, 2019 UPDATED 9:44 PM ET Aug. 21, 2019
The de Blasio administration is easing requirements to enter the city's lotteries for affordable housing. With the changes, many more undocumented immigrants will be eligible to land one of the hard-to-get apartments, which are subsidized by city taxpayers.
Every adult member of a household needs to enter their Social Security number or tax ID number for a family to enter the affordable housing lottery. Now, you won't need either for any member of your family
This is being done to eliminate the need for a credit check and, according to the de Blasio administration, make entering the lottery more fair
Thursday, December 26, 2019
En general, los costos asociados con los inmigrantes ilegales son mucho más altos para los gobiernos estatales y locales que el gobierno federal.
Los costos cubren gastos adicionales para educación, asistencia social, cumplimiento de la ley y atención médica.
Cuando se incluyen los costos federales, el precio a nivel nacional se eleva a $ 135 BILLONES al año.
3.5 BILLONES DE IMPUESTOS PAGADOS POR ILEGALES
Los estados pagan $ 89 BILLON el tío Sam(🇺🇸) $ 46 BILLON
(135 BILLONES FEDERALES Y ESTADOS INCLUIDOS)
3.5 BILLONES DE IMPUESTOS PAGADOS POR ILEGALES
Los estados que más pagan por cuidar a los ilegales:
1. California - $ 23,038,125,353 (MILLONES)
(2.2 millones son ILEGALES EN ESTADO)
2. Texas - $ 10,994,614,550 (MILLONES)
(1,6 millones est. ILEGALES EN ESTADO)
3. Nueva York - $ 7,489,141,357 (MIL MILLONES)
(725,000 est. ILEGALES EN EL ESTADO)
4. Florida - $ 6,290,429,108 (MILLONES)
(775,000 est. ILEGALES EN EL ESTADO)
5. Nueva Jersey - $ 4,466,838,574
6. Illinois - $ 3,220,767,517
7. Georgia - $ 2,487,719,503
8. Carolina del Norte - $ 2,437,965,113
9. Maryland - $ 2,378,996,947
10. Arizona - $ 2,314,131,964
Desde 1990 y llegar a una estimación "conservadora" de 16,7 millones de inmigrantes ilegales
En junio de 2019, había 60.849 personas sin hogar,
- incluidas 14.589 familias sin hogar
- 21.295 niños sin hogar, que dormían cada noche en el sistema de refugio municipal de la ciudad de Nueva York.
Las familias constituyen casi las tres cuartas partes de la población de albergues para personas sin hogar.
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Communities around the nation are standing up to the narrative that gun control is the will of the people. Over 230 counties, towns, and cities have passed what is known as Second Amendment Sanctuary Ordinances, or SASOs.
These ordinances tell their state and federal government that the county does not support gun control and that it will not be enforced even if it becomes law.
Dozens of Virginia counties and cities are declaring themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries in an apparent revolt against the legislature's proposals for new firearm restrictions. The movement has gained so much steam that Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring issued an advisory opinion reminding residents that such "sanctuary" resolutions had no standing.
He returned to the Senate floor late Thursday to declare that the Senate and House Democrats were at an "impasse."
Pelosi holding the articles of impeachment and asking for assurances about a Senate trial is akin to asking for a quid pro quo.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., McConnell said that the top Democrat had insisted on "departing from the unanimous bipartisan precedent that 100 senators approved before the beginning of President [Bill] Clinton's trial" concerning logistics.
"It was a fraud on the high court of impeachment because of just what was reported earlier...Ridiculous hyperbole. We all saw it as hyperbole, but now it's been proven,"
said Starr (former Whitewater Independent Counsel)
Schumer's Corrupt Democratic Jurors
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was right to so eloquently smack down cryin’ Chuck Schumer’s request for a “Schumer do-over” of the House impeachment process with unheard-from witnesses. If, as House Democrats insist, the “evidence” is “uncontested,” why does Schumer seek new evidence and want to hear new witnesses, providing a list of White House advisers but not a list that includes the alleged Ukraine whistleblower? Schumer whines that McConnell has said he will take his cues on a Senate trial from President Trump, whom the House denied due process and the right to confront his accuser. Too bad, cryin’ Chuck, for just as in the House, elections have consequences. Republicans won the Senate so you play by their rules Schumer pretends that a Senate impeachment trial is like a trial in criminal or civil court and that McConnell can’t act as both a juror and a defense attorney. Of course he can -- an impeachment trial is more of a political process than a judicial one. Schumer is trying to depose a sitting President of the United States and overturn the results of an election, disenfranchising 63 million voters, without a crime or evidence of a crime, and he wants to talk about fairness?
McConnell is no more “tainted” as a juror for working with President Trump than the Senate Democrats, also jurors, who ran and are still running against Trump in 2020 -- Kobuchar, Harris, Warren, Booker, Sanders. They had or have a vested interest in Trump’s removal that in a regular trial would constitute a disqualifying conflict of interest. They would personally benefit from Trump’s removal so should they recuse themselves as some have asked McConnell to do? Tainted Senate jurors? How about Democrat Senators Durbin, Menendez, and Leahy, who begged Ukraine officials to give them some dirt on Donald Trump and to help with the Mueller investigation: Democrats wrote to the Ukrainian government in May 2018 urging it to continue investigations into President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign -- collusion later found not to exist.. The demand, which came from U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), resurfaced Wednesday in an opinion piece written by conservative Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post: It got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.” So, it’s okay for Democratic senators to encourage Ukraine to investigate Trump, but it’s not okay for the president to allegedly encourage Ukraine to investigate? These guys are going to be impartial jurors in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump when they demanded Ukraine dig up dirt on President Trump. Weren’t they abusing the powers of their office for personal political gain? Tainted Senate jurors? What about those who took campaign cash from Ukrainian sources? Kudos to Steve Hilton for pointing out the corruption of the first group on the Oct. 13 edition of his Fox show “The Next Revolution” -- a group of Democratic Senators took cash from a Ukraine lobbyist to push Ukrainian gas interests at the same Democrats are pushing the bogus Trump-Ukraine quid pro quo story invented by that great storyteller, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. As Hilton states in a transcript of his show available on Fox Opinion: Remember Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner? He had previously been a top fundraiser for John Kerry, who was Secretary of State at the time. And soon after Devon and Hunter joined the Burisma Board, the company channeled $90,000 to a lobbying firm called ML Strategies, which was headed by none other than David Leiter, John Kerry's former chief of staff. That's handy because then-Secretary of State John Kerry himself has visited Ukraine with promises of U.S. aid and assistance. Well, Leiter registered as a Burisma lobbyist in mid-2014. But in the year leading up to that, he gave close to $60,000 to Democrats, including a select group of U.S. senators who would later be instrumental in pushing cash towards Ukraine's energy sector, directly in line with Burisma's interests. He donated to Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., four times and to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., three times. A month after the last of those donations, both Markey and Shaheen were among four senators who wrote a letter to President Obama that said, "We should leverage the full resources and expertise of the U.S. government to assist Ukraine in improving its energy efficiency, increasing its domestic production and reforming its energy markets."
This was at a time when Democrats were waging a war on fossil fuels, opposing fracking, and trying to shut down U.S. energy production. American natural gas was bad for the environment but Ukrainian natural gas was good for the campaign coffers when it involves Hunter Biden’s business interests and John Kerry’s former chief of staff. As Hilton points out, Sen. Markey’s hypocrisy runs particularly deep:
Sen. Ed Markey was the Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal! He wants to shut down gas production in America. Yet he personally intervened with the Obama administration to send your tax dollars to boost Ukraine's gas production. And not just once.
Not only did he write that letter to Obama, but he sponsored multiple pieces of legislation that called for more U.S. assistance and aid specifically to help Ukraine's natural gas sector, including one that "directs the Overseas Private Investment Corporation to prioritize support for investments to increase energy efficiency, developed domestic oil and natural gas reserves and develop renewable energy sources in Ukraine."
Hilton also documented the link between Ukraine lobbyist David Leiter, John Kerry’s former chief of staff, and Sen, Richard Blumenthal, the faux Vietnam vet from Connecticut who so self-righteously sat in judgment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearings: He was a significant recipient of Ukraine campaign cash:
Steve Hilton, a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."…
Markey, Hilton says, “was the Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal! He wants to shut down gas production in America. Yet he personally intervened with the Obama administration to send your tax dollars to boost Ukraine's gas production. And not just once.” Archer, Hunter Biden's crony, funneled Burisma money to Richard Blumenthal “three times in 2013. The next year, Blumenthal returned the favor by backing legislation that would directly benefit Burisma and Hunter Biden.”
This reeks of Democrat hypocrisy and corruption among members of the Senate jury pool, Sen. Schumer. How about calling your tainted Democratic Senators as witnesses to explain their own conflicts of interest and corruption? Stop lecturing Mitch McConnell on propriety and clean up your own horse stalls.
The Senate on Thursday passed the initial part of a $1.4 trillion spending package to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year.
Senators voted 71-23 on the first measure, which totals $534.4 billion. They're expected to vote on the remaining bill later Thursday.
After that they'll send the legislation to President Trump's desk. White House officials have indicated he will sign the bills before the end of the day Friday when current funding expires.
The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed the pair of bills, with the first passing on a 297-120 vote and the second passing 280-138.
"The politics of gun violence are literally shifting beneath our feet," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "The small steps forward on gun safety in this budget bill - including the funding for research I fought for and secured - are really good news. But we can't stop here."
The second part of the package includes funding for homeland security; defense; commerce, science and justice; and financial services and general government.
The homeland security bill includes $1.375 billion for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, the same amount included in the fiscal 2019 bill. It also leaves the number of detention beds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement flat, and, in a win for the White House, imposes no restrictions on Trump's use of emergency powers to reprogram defense funds toward his wall.
The border wall has become a perennial sticking point in the government funding negotiations during the Trump era. A protracted fight over the border wall led to a record 35-day partial shutdown that started in December 2018 and ended with Trump declaring a national emergency to win more money.
Fiscal conservatives railed against the bill before its passage, but with the packages loaded up with priorities for both parties their opposition wasn't enough to endanger the funding measure.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) blasted negotiators for pretending that they weren't basically passing an omnibus.
"Leaders and appropriators have cleverly put the negotiated spending agreement into two bills so that we can all pretend that it's better than just one," he said. "Even though they were negotiated at the same time, released to the public at the same time and will be voted on within only minutes of each other."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) added in a video that the spending deal was a "pile of trash," while Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) compared the spending bill to the first time he tried "supreme pizza."
"There were some things that I really, really didn't like in that bite," he added. "There are some things in these bills coming up ... that I just cannot support."
“House Counsel Douglas Letter said in a filing in federal court that a second impeachment could be necessary if the House uncovers new evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct investigations of his conduct. Letter made the argument as part of an inquiry by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals into whether Democrats still need testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn after the votes last week to charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” reports Politico.
SCOTUS HAS SPOKEN TO CLEAR THE AIR
BREAKING NEWS DEC 22,2019 (Dec. 22, 2019) — The United States Supreme Court – in a 9-0 holding – unequivocally ruled that no trial is required for the Senate to acquit, or convict, anyone impeached by the House of Representatives. Even liberal Justices Stevens and Souter concurred in the ironclad judgment. The case is Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993).
PRESIDENT TRUMP ISN’T IMPEACHMENT UNTIL THE HOUSE TELLS THE US SENATE!!!
Dems' own witness says Trump not truly impeached unless articles go to Senate
(Dec. 22, 2019) — The United States Supreme Court – in a 9-0 holding – unequivocally ruled that no trial is required for the Senate to acquit, or convict, anyone impeached by the House of Representatives. Even liberal Justices Stevens and Souter concurred in the ironclad judgment. The case is Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993).
Once you comprehend the momentous importance of this case, you will then understand why Harvard Law School professor (and Democrat impeachment witness), Noah Feldman, recently published an article erroneously claiming that President Trump hasn’t been impeached yet.
Feldman isn’t trying to help the President. He knows the Senate can acquit immediately without waiting for Speaker Pelosi to transfer articles of impeachment, or for House impeachment managers to be appointed. This is because the Supreme Court has ruled – in the Nixon case – that how the Senate goes about acquitting or convicting any impeached person is non-justiciable, in that the Senate’s power is plenary and the Supreme Court may not even review it.
This means that if the Senate acquits Trump immediately – without a trial – the Supreme Court has no authority, whatsoever, to review the Senate’s acquittal, and there isn’t a damn thing the House can do about it.
Feldman is distracting the nation from understanding the full scope of Senate acquittal authority. He knows that if the House hasn’t impeached the President, the Senate could not immediately acquit him. This is why Feldman appears to be defending POTUS.
Appearances are deceptive. Feldman’s true game is to provide cover for Pelosi’s power play in not delivering the articles of impeachment or choosing House impeachment managers, neither of which is necessary for the House to impeach. The Constitution doesn’t mention “articles of impeachment” or “impeachment managers.” And once the House impeaches, the Senate takes over. The House then has no power whatsoever to dictate terms of a trial. No trial is even required.
The Nixon court held that “the word ‘sole’ indicates that this authority is reposed in the Senate and nowhere else.” Feldman is fully aware of this, and he fears the American people will discover the truth. This is why he is trying to convince you that the House has not impeached the President yet.
House Resolution 755 states that the House voted to impeachPresident Trump, and it voted to exhibit articles of impeachment to the Senate. The twin objectives of the resolution are stated clearly in the text of H.R. 755:
“RESOLUTION
Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:”
The resolution passed. It was resolved that the President “is impeached” and that the articles be “exhibited” to the Senate. The first objective was accomplished when the resolution passed, and the second objective has not yet been accomplished. But formal transmission of the articles is not required by the Constitution for there to be an impeachment.
The Senate has no authority to determine what conduct is impeachable or what process the House uses to impeach. On the other hand, the House has no authority over the Senate’s sole power to acquit, or convict, or the process invoked to either end.
Therefore, no trial is necessary for the Senate to acquit immediately. This saga could be over right now. Feldman realizes this is true, so he invented a bogus unwritten requirement into the Constitution, to the effect that impeachment is a process requiring transmission of articles of impeachment to the Senate. Feldman, of course, does not mention the Nixon case.
WALTER NIXON’S IMPEACHMENT CONVICTION
Walter Nixon was the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. He was convicted of making false statements before a grand jury and sentenced to prison.
The investigation stemmed from reports that Nixon accepted a gratuity from a Mississippi businessman in exchange for asking a local district attorney to halt the prosecution of the businessman’s son. (Sound familiar?) Because Nixon refused to resign from his office as a United States District Judge, he continued to collect his judicial salary while serving out his prison sentence.
The House of Representatives adopted three articles of impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. The Senate voted to use Senate Impeachment Rule XI, allowing the presiding officer to appoint a committee of Senators to “receive evidence and take testimony.” The committee did its work then presented the full Senate with a transcript of the proceeding and a report on the facts.
The Senate voted by more than a two-thirds majority to convict Nixon. The presiding officer then entered judgment removing Nixon from his office as United States District Judge. Nixon thereafter commenced suit, arguing that Senate Rule XI violates the constitutional grant of authority to the Senate to “try” all impeachments because it prohibits the whole Senate from taking part in the evidentiary hearings.
Nixon sought a declaratory judgment that his impeachment conviction was void and that his judicial salary and privileges should be reinstated. The District Court held that his claim was non-justiciable, 744 F. Supp. 9 (D.C. 1990), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. 290 U. S. App. D.C. 420 (1991). The Supreme Court accepted the case, and then ruled that they had no power to review the Senate’s impeachment process. They affirmed that the case was non-justiciable. The Court focused its attention on the word “sole”:
“Petitioner devotes only two pages in his brief to negating the significance of the word ‘sole’ in the first sentence of Clause 6. As noted above, that sentence provides that ‘[t]he Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.’ We think that the word ‘sole’ is of considerable significance. Indeed, the word ‘sole’ appears only one other time in the Constitution–with respect to the House of Representatives’ ‘sole Power of Impeachment.’ Art. I, §2, cl. 5 (emphasis added). The common sense meaning of the word ‘sole’ is that the Senate alone shall have authority to determine whether an individual should be acquitted or convicted.” (Emphasis added.)
The Court’s holding is clear: the Senate alone determines acquittal or conviction. The Senate committee prepared a report, submitted the report to the Senate, and the Senate voted to convict. Nixon demanded a full trial before the entire Senate. He did not get one. He lost and was removed. The Supreme Court held that it did not have the power to review the Senate’s conduct. As to the meaning of the word “try” in the impeachment clause, the court’s majority opinion states:
“The conclusion that the use of the word ‘try’ in the first sentence of the Impeachment Trial Clause lacks sufficient precision to afford any judicially manageable standard of review of the Senate’s actions is fortified by the existence of the three very specific requirements that the Constitution does impose on the Senate when trying impeachments: the members must be under oath, a two thirds vote is required to convict, and the Chief Justice presides when the President is tried. These limitations are quite precise, and their nature suggests that the Framers did not intend to impose additional limitations on the form of the Senate proceedings by the use of the word ‘try’ in the first sentence.” [Emphasis added.]
The Court’s use of the word “proceedings” is telling in the extreme. Any action by the Senate is a proceeding, but not every proceeding is a trial. If the Senate proceeds with a motion to dismiss, or a motion to acquit the President, no trial is required.
The Nixon Court continued by making it absolutely clear that an impeachment trial is not required, holding that the Senate is not limited in any way by the word “try” in convicting or acquitting impeached persons:
“In the case before us, there is no separate provision of the Constitution which could be defeated by allowing the Senate final authority to determine the meaning of the word ‘try’ in the Impeachment Trial Clause… [W]e conclude…that the word ‘try’ in the Impeachment Clause does not provide an identifiable textual limit on the authority which is committed to the Senate. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is Affirmed.” (Emphasis added.)
Nothing in the Constitution, or in the ruling by the Supreme Court in Nixon, requires the Senate to “try” anyone after the House impeaches. The Senate can simply acquit the President without trying him, because the Senate alone has the power to convict or acquit. The Supreme Court held that there is no identifiable textual limit on that authority. Justice White’s concurring opinion worried that such broad authority in the Senate could be abused, but six of the nine justices joined the majority opinion. All nine approved judgment. And the Senate’s plenary authority is controlling law.
If there is a tie on a motion to acquit or dismiss, the Constitution gives Vice President Pence the tie-breaking vote. If the Democrat Senators running for President have no conflict of interest, neither does Pence. Regardless, the Constitution directly gives Pence the tie-breaking vote, so the GOP can lose three votes, but the Dems would need four GOP defectors to overrule the Chair.
BREAKING NEWS!!!! House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced Thursday afternoon that there will be no more House votes until Jan. 7, prompting cheers from his Democratic colleagues in the chamber.
The announcement is confirmation that the House will not approve impeachment managers or send the two articles of impeachment to the Senate until the beginning of the new year.
The shadow government is considering using its “continuity of government” (COG) mechanism already in place to overthrow the entire Trump administration.
In the Obama White House, Durham and Barr will have questions for Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Ben “Benghazi” Rhodes, and UN Representative Samantha Powers. Barr said he is looking at “unauthorized surveillance” and “Political Surveillance”. He said unequivocally that “Spying did occur”. At some point, Durham is going to have to interview the man behind the persecution of Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama.
The COG procedures, which were first drafted during the Cold War to ensure the government’s survival during a nuclear war, mesh well with the establishment narrative that the 2016 presidential election was “stolen” by “Russian hackers.”
“Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial,” Feldman wrote.
“If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president,” he continued. “If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say he wasn’t truly impeached at all.”
Now that the House of Representatives has voted to impeach President Donald Trump,
1) what is the constitutional status of the two articles of impeachment?
2) Must they be transmitted to the Senate to trigger a trial?
3) could they be held back by the House until the Senate decides what the trial will look like, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi has hinted?
A) The Constitution doesn’t say how fast the articles must go to the Senate.
B) Some modest delay is not inconsistent with the Constitution, or how both chambers usually work.
But an indefinite delay would pose a serious problem.
FACT#1 - Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial.
FACT#2 - Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution:
The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial.
FACT#3 - If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president.
If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.
That’s because “impeachment” under the Constitution means the House sending its approved articles of to the Senate, with “House managers standing up in the Senate and saying the president is impeached”.
FACT#4 - As for the headlines we saw after the House vote saying, “TRUMP IMPEACHED,” those are a media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement.
So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message.
Once the articles are sent, the Senate has a constitutional duty to hold a trial on the impeachment charges presented.
Failure for the Senate to hold a trial after impeachment would deviate from the Constitution’s clear expectation.
For the House to vote “to impeach” without ever sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial would also deviate from the constitutional protocol.
It would mean that the president had not genuinely been impeached under the Constitution; and it would also deny the president the chance to defend himself in the Senate that the Constitution provides.
The relevant constitutional provisions are brief. Article I gives the House “the sole power of impeachment.” And it gives the Senate “the sole power to try all impeachments.” Article II says that the president “shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Putting these three different provisions together yields the conclusion that the only way to remove the president while he is in office is if the House impeaches him and the Senate tries and convicts him.
The provisions say nothing about timing. Taken literally, they don’t directly say that articles of impeachment passed by the House must be sent to the Senate. But the framers’ definition of impeachment assumed that impeachment was a process, not just a House vote.
The framers drafted the constitutional provisions against the backdrop of impeachment as it had been practiced in England, where the House of Commons impeached and the House of Lords tried the impeachments. The whole point of impeachment by the Commons was for the charges of impeachment to be brought against the accused in the House of Lords.
Strictly speaking, “impeachment” occurred – and occurs -- when the articles of impeachment are presented to the Senate for trial. And at that point, the Senate is obliged by the Constitution to hold a trial.
What would make that trial fair is a separate question, one that deserves its own discussion. But we can say with some confidence that only the Senate is empowered to judge the fairness of its own trial – that’s what the “sole power to try all impeachments” means.
If the House votes to “impeach” but doesn’t send the articles to the Senate or send impeachment managers there to carry its message, it hasn’t directly violated the text of the Constitution. But the House would be acting against the implicit logic of the Constitution’s description of impeachment.
A president who has been genuinely impeached must constitutionally have the opportunity to defend himself before the Senate. That’s built into the constitutional logic of impeachment, which demands a trial before removal.
To be sure, if the House just never sends its articles of impeachment to the Senate, there can be no trial there. That’s what the “sole power to impeach” means.
But if the House never sends the articles, then Trump could say with strong justification that he was never actually impeached. And that’s probably not the message Congressional Democrats are hoping to send.
