President on Trial.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: The impeachment of Donald Trump

The House of Representatives has impeached President Trump. Now the future of his presidency rests with the Senate.

The House of Representatives voted on December 18 to impeach President Trump.

It was only the third time in American history that a president has been impeached, and the decision to take such an extraordinary step fell larqely along party lines.

"It represents not just a historical rarity," says Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and an expert on impeachment, "but also a pretty serious judgment of one house of the legislature that an American president has done something bad enough that he ought to be removed from office before the American public has a chance to judge for themselves."

The Founding Fathers created the impeachment process as a way to remove a president for significant wrongdoing. The House approved two articles of impeachment, voting 230 to 197 to charge President Trump with abuse of power and 229 to 198 to charge him with obstruction of Congress.

The next step is a trial in the Senate. What happens there will determine the future of Trump's presidency. Here's a guide to following the action.

1. How does the Senate trial compare to a court trial?

   The outlines are the same: A group of Democrats from the House, known as House managers, will serve as prosecutors, laying out the case against Hump (see "Sitting in Judgment," facing page). The president's own lawyers will defend him. Chief Justice John G. Roberts will preside over the proceedings, much as a judge would in a trial. All 100 senators will act as the jury, each casting one vote. A two-thirds majority (67 senators) is needed to convict the president.

   But there are also some important ways in which this trial will differ from a court trial. First of all, each time the Senate considers articles of impeachment, it establishes a new set of rules for how the trial will be handled, whereas courts function with a fixed set of rules. And the chief justice will not have the final say as a judge would; he can be overruled on procedural issues if a majority of senators vote to do so.

   "How it plays out is going to be almost entirely a political choice," says Bowman. "That's what makes this so different."

2. What's the Democrats' argument?

   The Democrats say Trump used the power of the presidency to pressure Ukrainian leaders to publicly launch investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, a top Democratic challenger in the 2020 election...