IMPEACHMENT is one of the few ways a US President can be removed from office – but how does it work?
Here's what you need to know.
What does impeachment mean and how does the process work?
In the US, impeachment is a formal charge of serious wrongdoing against the holder of public office.
It is one of the few ways a sitting President can be kicked out of the White House before an election.
The US Constitution states a President "shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours".
The "sole power of impeachment" is held by the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress.
A simple majority is required – i.e. more than half of Congressmen must vote to impeach the President.
Then the case would be tried by the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, where a two-thirds majority is needed.
Which presidents have been impeached?
Only two Presidents in history have been impeached, despite numerous threats on others.
Bill Clinton
The most recent was Bill Clinton, who was impeached in the House on charges of perjury and obstructing justice on December 19, 1998.
It related to his denials of an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
He infamously denied having "had sexual relations" with her to the public and federal investigators in January 1999.
However, when the trial reached the Senate in 1999, it failed to get close to the two-thirds backing it needed to remove him from office.
Many senators at the time agreed Clinton had behaved badly but ultimately decided his misconduct didn't amount to "high crimes in misdemeanours.
Clinton finished his second term before he was succeeded by Republican George W Bush.
Andrew Johnson
The second president to get impeached was Andrew Johnson, who served as President for four years from 1865.
He was impeached by the House in 1868, just 11 days after he got rid of his secretary of war Edwin Stanton.
The two-thirds majority needed in the Senate was missed by just one vote.
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached over the Watergate Scandal.
The Watergate scandal refers to a break in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington DC and the subsequent chain of events.
Early in the morning of June 17, 1972, several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings in Washington, DC.
The group were caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents, and it was later revealed that they were all connected to President Nixon’s re-election campaign.
In August 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he swore that White House staffers were not involved in the break-in, winning the public’s confidence and securing him another term in office.
Nixon released damning tapes that undeniably confirmed his complicity in the Watergate Scandal on August 5, 1974.
To avoid imminent impeachment by Congress, he chose to resign in disgrace on August 8, and left the White House the following day.
Six weeks later, Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as president and chose to pardon Nixon for any crimes he had committed while in office.
Nixon himself never admitted any wrongdoing and died in 1994.
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