Fact check: No, impeachment itself would not ban Trump from a 2024 run - CNNPolitics - 0 views
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A viral tweet claims that impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time would mean he would lose the ability to run for president in 2024. That's not true. Nor are other claims in the tweet.
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The tweet was posted on Friday, two days after a Capitol insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters sparked a new impeachment push from House Democrats.
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It says the following: "For those wondering if it's worth impeaching him this time, it means he: 1) loses his 200k+ pension for the rest of his life2) loses his 1 million dollar/year travel allowanceRead More3) loses lifetime full secret service detail
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he tweet is inaccurate in multiple ways. 1) Trump would lose his post-presidency pension only if both the House voted to impeach him and then the Senate voted to remove him from office; impeachment itself, without removal, would not result in Trump being denied any benefits.2) The law makes clear that presidents who have lifetime Secret Service protection never get a $1 million travel allowance. 3) It is unclear that Trump would lose lifetime Secret Service protection even if the Senate voted to remove him and prohibit him from running.4) Even a Senate vote to remove Trump would not prohibit him from running in 2024; for the Senate to ban him from the presidency, it would have to hold an additional vote on this question.
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Trump would not lose his pension if the House impeached him for his role in inciting the insurrection -- just as he didn't lose his pension when the House impeached him in 2019 over his effort to use the US' relationship with Ukraine for his own political ends
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Lots of average citizens use the word "impeachment" to refer to impeachment and removal, so we're not bashing Costiloe for this common error, but the statement is incorrect.
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Neither a second House impeachment nor even a Senate vote to convict Trump and remove him from office would prevent him from running again, in 2024 or beyond.
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Presidents who have not been impeached and removed are entitled to a lifetime pension equivalent to the annual salary of a head of an executive department. For Trump, like predecessor President Barack Obama, that would indeed amount to more than $200,000 per year.
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Rather, after two-thirds of senators present voted to remove Trump, a simple majority of senators present would have to approve an additional vote to bar him from the presidency in the future.
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There is at least some uncertainty about the disqualification issue, since no president has ever been removed from office by the Senate and only judges have been disqualified from future office.
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One law, the Former Presidents Act we mentioned earlier, specifically says that a president who gets booted by the Senate does not count as a "former president" for the purpose of certain post-presidency perks. However, another law signed by Obama in 2013, the Former Presidents Protection Act, simply authorizes lifetime Secret Service protection for former presidents -- without defining "former president" in any particular way.
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It is not clear which definition the federal government or the courts would use when it came to deciding whether an impeached and removed Trump should get lifetime Secret Service protection
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Trump was not certain to get a $1 million travel allowance in the first place. In fact, the travel allowance -- technically, a security and travel allowance -- is only for former presidents who are not getting lifetime Secret Service protection.
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In other words: under normal circumstances -- if Trump finished out his term as scheduled and then accepted the lifetime Secret Service protection he would indisputably be entitled to in that case -- there would be no $1 million security and travel allowance for him.