Nancy Pelosi undoubtedly is proud of the fact that Donald Trump is now the only U.S. president in history to have been impeached twice. However, it’s a distinction Trump is unlikely to hold for long.
Impeachments are likely to become a cost of doing business for American presidents. Arguably, they already are.
There have been three of them in the last four presidencies. Two of the last four presidents have been impeached. And there is good reason to believe that the pace will accelerate.
Going forward, I think any president facing a House of Representatives in which his or her party is in the minority stands about a 50-50 chance of being impeached in such a session. If that’s true, then the odds of another president being impeached twice at some point in the next twenty years are pretty good.
It might even happen to Joe Biden, if he lives long enough.
The first impeachment of Trump was the product of a presidential scandal in my opinion, but one that came nowhere close to constituting an impeachable offense. The second impeachment is a closer call, I believe. It will be the subject of a follow-up post.
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