The Daily Background

Just so there’s no confusion about how a hypothetical impeachment proceeding against Alberto Gonzales would work (even though we’re not even close to that point), here’s a brief outline in light of the resolution that will be introduced in the House on Tuesday.

1. The House Judiciary Committee would vote on a resolution to refer articles of impeachment to the full House of Representatives. If that is passed the matter goes on to step two (though it certainly does not have to start in the House Judiciary Committee, because this matter involves the head of the Department of Justice, it seems proper that it should start in the relevant committee).

2. The full House of Representatives votes on articles of impeachment, which lay out the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors that Gonzales has committed. This is a 51% vote, meaning it can pass by a simple majority (at this point, the defendant is officially “impeached” but there’s no action that can be taken yet).

3. The matter would then be referred to the Senate, where either Vice President Cheney, or if he’s not in attendance, Robert Byrd, as the Senate President pro tempore (longest-serving member) would proceed over an impeachment trial. Basically, the House articles serve as an indictment, but the case gets tried in the Senate. It takes a two-thirds majority of however many Senators are present for the Senate to convict the defendant, by which Gonzales is removed from office (and they can later be brought to a normal court for criminal charges).

Oh, and by the way. Yes, impeachment of a cabinet member is very legally possible, it just hasn’t happened for a while. I want to stress two points however. A) we’re nowhere near that happening here, and B) it’s extremely hard to imagine that Gonzales would stay in his job throughout this entire process; he’d undoubtedly rather resign before it got to that point (like William Belknap, a previous cabinet-level secretary abruptly resigned when he found he was going to be impeached hours later… or of course Nixon, who resigned shortly before the House of Representatives was set to introduce articles of impeachment).

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