REPORT: June 22, 2026 — The House votes to impeach Trump, the third president to face impeachment

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-26 22:13:24

The Charges Against the 47th President

The articles of impeachment put to a vote in the House on June 22, 2026, were a summary of the thirteen charges filed by Representative John Larson in April 2026, supplemented by an in-depth investigation conducted by the Judiciary Committee under the chairmanship of Jamie Raskin. The first and most serious of the articles concerned the usurpation of war powers: Trump had launched military strikes against Iran, Venezuela, and targets in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean without ever obtaining authorization from Congress, in direct violation of Article I of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Representative Larson had accused Trump of murder, war crimes, and piracy for ordering a naval blockade around Venezuela.

The following articles covered a range of institutional abuses unprecedented since the Nixon era. These included the militarization of domestic law enforcement through the deployment of the National Guard in American cities; the unconstitutional detention and deportation of citizens and residents based on ethnicity or political opposition; reprisals against freedom of speech; the abuse of the power of pardon to undermine the rule of law; and the usurpation of Congress’s budgetary powers. The final article addressed violations of the domestic and foreign emoluments clauses of the Constitution, a charge that constitutional experts have been raising for years but which had never been seriously investigated until then.

The White House’s defense: “historic witch hunt”

The White House had described the entire proceedings as “the greatest witch hunt in American history,” echoing Trump’s favorite phrase during his first two impeachment trials. The president’s lawyers had filed an 89-page defense brief arguing that the military strikes fell within the commander-in-chief’s inherent constitutional prerogatives and that the deployment of the National Guard was in response to proven national emergencies. The White House press secretary denounced what he called a “cynical attempt by Democrats to destabilize a democratically elected president, motivated solely by electoral revenge.”

Trump himself, from the White House, had posted a series of messages on social media calling Democratic representatives “traitors” and urging his supporters to “make their voices heard.” He had predicted as early as January 2026, during a Republican retreat at the House, that he would be impeached if the Republicans lost the midterms: “You have to win the midterms, because if we don’t win, they’re going to find a reason to impeach me. I’ll be impeached.” This prophecy was coming true with almost uncanny precision.

Trump’s ritualistic repetition of the phrase “witch hunt” eventually rings hollow from being invoked for everything and anything. When every institutional check becomes persecution, when every congressional subpoena becomes a political attack, it is the very concept of democratic accountability that is stripped of its meaning. That is precisely the danger: not that Trump truly believes he is being persecuted, but that he has succeeded in convincing millions of Americans that the Constitution is a weapon in the hands of his enemies. This is the institutional harm that this impeachment seeks to remedy.

The voting process: six hours of debate, a clear majority

The Course of the Historic Plenary Session

The plenary session began at 2:02 p.m. local time. House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries opened the proceedings with a sober and precise address, reminding the chamber that impeachment was not an act of partisan revenge but a constitutional mechanism for holding officials accountable, designed by the Founding Fathers for cases exactly like this one. The proceedings consisted of six hours of alternating speeches, with each time slot allocated to Democrats methodically listing the charges, and each Republican slot challenging the procedure rather than the facts themselves—an implicit acknowledgment of the strength of the factual case built by the Raskin committee.

Representative Jamie Raskin, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, delivered the day’s keynote address in the early afternoon, noting that Donald Trump had benefited for eighteen months from a sympathetic Republican-controlled House that had challenged each of his previous impeachment attempts. “We are not here because we lost an election,” he said. “We are here because the president has systematically refused to abide by the limits the Constitution imposes on his office.” Representative Al Green of Texas, who had introduced articles of impeachment on several occasions since 2025, finally saw his efforts culminate in a vote that mattered.

The Final Tally: A Historic but Not Unanimous Majority

The final vote, article by article, yielded a solid Democratic majority, with a few moderate Republicans crossing the aisle. The articles relating to abuses of war powers garnered the broadest support, reflecting genuine concern among Republican members from districts where the war in Iran had been unpopular from the start. The vote on violations of the emoluments clauses had been closer, with some Democrats from conservative districts voting “present” rather than “yes” on that specific article, fearing backlash in their districts.

Trump’s approval rating, which had been below 40% for several months according to multiple polls—including the June 2026 Emerson College poll—had made it politically viable for some Republicans in marginal districts not to rush to his defense. A Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll published in April 2026 indicated that 55% of American adults believed the House should vote to impeach Trump—an unprecedented level comparable to Nixon’s worst numbers during the Watergate crisis in August 1974. The popular majority existed. So did the constitutional majority in the House.

What these figures really show is that America was ready. Not unanimous—it never has been—but ready. Fifty-five percent support for impeachment is phenomenal for such a polarized country. This isn’t the victory of one side over the other; it’s the victory of an institutional imperative over political fatigue. But I remain cautious: an impeachment without a conviction in the Senate is all thunder and no lightning. History has taught us twice with Trump that he has mastered the art of surviving even the heaviest blows.

The Procession of Bills to the Senate: A Constitutional Ritual Steeped in History

The Solemn Procession Through the Capitol

On the evening of June 22, 2026, after the vote was certified, the most symbolic scene of the day unfolded in the halls of the Capitol. The impeachment managers—the representatives appointed by Speaker Jeffries to present the charges to the Senate—followed the ritual path through Statuary Hall, passing by statues of great figures in American history, to solemnly deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This procession, identical in form to those of January 2020 and January 2021, took on special significance: it was the third time Donald Trump had been the subject of this ceremony.

The Clerk of the House, carrying the articles in blue folders, announced aloud: “The House has adopted the resolution designating and authorizing the managers of the impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, President of the United States.” The Senate took note. The atmosphere was both solemn and somber—solemn because the Constitution was working, somber because everyone knew that the Senate, even with a slim Democratic majority, was far from the two-thirds majority required for conviction. The Republicans still held enough seats to protect the president.

The Immediate Reaction from Both Sides on Capitol Hill

In the makeshift press rooms outside the Capitol, the scenes of reaction stood in stark contrast. On the Democratic side, there was restrained but sincere satisfaction: several of the oldest elected officials, some of whom had participated in Trump’s first two impeachments during his first term, did not hide their raw emotion, aware that they were witnessing a historic moment. On the Republican side, the outrage machine had kicked into gear immediately: the House minority leader denounced an “attack on the voters of 2024” and promised that Republicans would fight to retake the House in the next election cycle.

Outside the Capitol, groups of Trump supporters held up signs reading “Witch Hunt 3.0” and “Stop the Steal of Governance.” But the pro-impeachment crowd was larger and more organized than during previous episodes, reflecting a nation weary of eighteen months of governance that pushed the boundaries of constitutionality. Local authorities had anticipated the tensions and deployed additional personnel, but the day passed without any major incidents—a stark contrast to January 6, 2021.

The comparison with January 6, 2021, is obvious, and it is instructive. On June 22, 2026, there was no storming of the Capitol, no broken windows, no pipe bombs. Just signs and chants. This speaks volumes about the difference between a president who incites violence and a constitutional process that, even if unpopular with some, proceeds within the rules. The democratic West functions when its institutions hold firm. They held firm that day, and that is, despite everything, good news.

The end-of-session context: a procedure under time pressure

The Tension Between Political Urgency and Constitutional Requirements

The end of the legislative session was approaching, adding an extra layer of pressure to the proceedings. The House had chosen to initiate the impeachment vote in June rather than in January 2027—a date when a potential new administration could theoretically change the situation—for reasons that were both symbolic and strategic. Democratic leaders wanted to send a clear message: accountability cannot be postponed until the next election. The Constitution provides for this mechanism precisely so that sitting presidents can be judged by their peers—the representatives of the people—without waiting for the verdict of the ballot box.

But the timing also raised practical questions. The Senate, where Democrats had held a slim majority since November 2026, would have to conduct a trial under strict rules, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The numbers for a conviction remained unfavorable: it would take two-thirds of the senators—67 votes—to find Trump guilty and potentially bar him from holding public office. The Republicans, though weakened, still held enough seats to put up a defense. The issue, therefore, was not merely to vote for impeachment, but to build a public case so strong that the Senate trial itself would become an educational lesson for American democracy.

The Role of the Midterms in Setting the Process in Motion

To understand what happened on June 22, we must go back to the November 3, 2026, elections. The Democrats had taken control of the House by winning the minimum number of seats required, amid a moderate “blue wave” fueled by Trump’s record-high disapproval rating, the economic fallout from the prolonged trade war, gas prices, and the ongoing controversy over the strikes in Iran conducted without congressional authorization. Inside Elections with Nathan Gonzales had projected a Democratic gain of 2 to 10 seats—the final result fell at the high end of that range.

Trump himself had paved the psychological groundwork for this impeachment during a Republican retreat in January 2026: “You have to win the midterms because if we don’t win, they’ll find a reason to impeach me.” ” It wasn’t a prediction; it was almost an order. By warning his supporters, Trump had simultaneously provided the Democrats with the perfect narrative framework: if the Republicans lose, impeachment becomes the natural and expected consequence of such an outcome. Republican Senator John Cornyn had, in fact, warned his colleagues in May 2026: a Democratic House “would immediately turn the legislative agenda into an impeachment process.”

There is a cruel irony in the fact that Trump himself conceptually validated impeachment by making it the main Republican campaign argument in the midterms. “Don’t vote for them, or they’ll impeach me”—that is to admit that impeachment is legitimate if voters choose to give the Democrats that mandate. Voters did just that. The logic has come full circle. Trump has, unwittingly, turned impeachment into a credible Democratic campaign promise by talking about it tirelessly himself.

The major charges: war, abuse of power, and attacks on institutions

The Usurpation of War Powers: The Core of the Constitutional Case

The first and most substantial of the articles of impeachment concerned the usurpation of war powers. The U.S. Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power to declare war (Article I, Section 8). The War Powers Resolution of 1973, adopted in response to the excesses of the Vietnam War, requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of the deployment of military forces and to obtain authorization within 60 days. Trump had systematically violated both of these requirements: the strikes against Iran, the naval blockade around Venezuela, and operations against drug trafficking targets in the Caribbean—all had been conducted without adequate prior notification or congressional authorization.

Representative Larson, the lead author of the articles, stated in April 2026: “Donald Trump has gone far beyond all the requirements for impeachment. And it’s getting worse.” ” The articles emphasized that his threats against Iran—notably his statement that “an entire civilization will die” if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz—constituted not only precursors to war crimes but also executive instability incompatible with the responsibilities of the commander-in-chief. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, the likely Democratic Senate whip, had acknowledged that Trump had committed “a million impeachable things”—an assessment shared well beyond progressive circles.

The Militarization of Domestic Law Enforcement and Attacks on Civil Liberties

The following articles documented the deployment of the National Guard in U.S. cities for domestic law enforcement purposes, circumventing the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military for civil law enforcement operations. The detentions and deportations of individuals based on their ethnicity, country of origin, or political views constituted another set of serious charges, as evidenced by numerous incidents, including the death of a woman in Minneapolis during an ICE operation carried out with the support of the National Guard—an incident that prompted more than 80 Democratic members of Congress to file articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

The article on the suppression of free speech specifically targeted investigations ordered or encouraged by Trump against journalists, academics, and members of Congress who had exercised their constitutional right to criticize him. The social media video in which Trump appeared to incite military personnel to disobey illegal orders—and implicitly call for the execution of Democratic members of Congress—alone crystallized the outrage of 140 Democratic representatives during Al Green’s second impeachment vote in December 2025. According to these elected officials, the line between presidential rhetorical hyperbole and a direct constitutional threat had been crossed.

On this specific point—the militarization of law enforcement and ethnically targeted deportations—I make no pretense of neutrality. These are real violations of principles that the West has spent centuries building. A state governed by the rule of law does not deport people because they belong to the “wrong” ethnic group or hold the “wrong” political views. This is not a matter of left-right ideology; it is a matter of the very foundations of civilization. And when a president undermines these foundations, the impeachment process is not a political weapon—it is precisely the tool the Founding Fathers intended for this type of situation.

The Iran Issue: A War Without a Democratic Mandate

The Strikes Against Iran and Their Constitutional Implications

The war against Iran constituted the strongest factual basis in the entire impeachment case. Trump had launched military operations against Iranian nuclear facilities without ever obtaining authorization from Congress, informing congressional leaders only after the fact—and even then, only incompletely. In June 2025, an initial impeachment attempt by Representative Al Green based solely on this ground had been tabled by 128 Democrats voting with the Republicans—a sign that the majority of the Democratic caucus was still hesitant to take this path ahead of the midterms. But the situation had changed: in December 2025, only 23 Democrats joined Republicans in blocking a second article of impeachment introduced by Green, while 47 voted “present.”

Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, the daughter of Iranian immigrants, had filed additional articles of impeachment alongside Larson against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him in particular of ordering a strike to “kill the survivors of an initial attack” on a vessel in the Caribbean—a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions. These charges against Hegseth, while not directly included in the articles targeting Trump, reinforced the overall picture of a militarized administration operating outside any legal framework. Ansari had stated: “As the daughter of Iranian immigrants and as someone who has taken an oath on the Constitution, I know this absolutely cannot continue.”

The Geopolitical Impact and the West’s Perspective

The war in Iran, waged without a congressional mandate, had created lasting rifts not only within American public opinion but also within Western alliances. Several allied European governments had expressed diplomatic reservations about the legitimacy of U.S. military operations, pointing to the lack of congressional authorization as a factor destabilizing the collective defense system. NATO operated through consultation and consensus—a presidency that waged wars by personal decree sent an alarming signal to the entire free world. The fact that Trump had threatened to annihilate “an entire civilization” over a commercial strait was, in the eyes of many partners, a symptom of the systemic danger posed by his style of governance.

On the domestic front in the United States, gas prices had skyrocketed in the months following the strikes on Iran, directly contributing to the collapse of Trump’s approval rating below 40% and fueling the blue wave in the midterms. Irresponsible geopolitics had direct domestic economic consequences, and American voters had drawn their conclusions at the polls. According to ActiVote in May 2026, Trump’s approval rating had been structurally below 40% for several weeks—a level historically associated with massive losses for the president’s party in the midterms.

I want to be honest here about my own take on Trump’s foreign policy. There are aspects of his tough stance toward China, Iran, and Russia that correspond to an objective necessity—the West needs leaders capable of facing these threats head-on. But there is a fundamental difference between strategic firmness and managerial chaos. Launching wars without congressional authorization, threatening entire civilizations on social media—that’s not firmness; it’s dangerous improvisation. The West deserves better than that. Even Trump’s defenders on the international stage should recognize this.

The Constitutional Legacy: Johnson, Clinton, Trump — A Third in the Crosshairs

Trump’s Place Among Impeached Presidents

With this third impeachment, Donald Trump joins Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) as presidents who have been formally impeached by the House. But his case is historically unique in several respects. Johnson was impeached only once, Clinton only once—Trump has been impeached three times, twice during his first term (in December 2019 for abuse of power in the Ukraine affair and obstruction of Congress, and in January 2021 for inciting insurrection) and now a third time during his second term. No president in American history had ever reached this unprecedented number. The U.S. Constitution had intended impeachment to be a rare and serious measure—under Trump, it has become a recurring procedure.

It is worth recalling the precedents: during his first impeachment in 2019, the House voted 230–197 on the articles of impeachment (abuse of power) and 229–198 (obstruction of Congress), with the Senate acquitting Trump, with Republican Senator Mitt Romney as the sole dissenting voice. During the second impeachment in January 2021, related to the January 6 insurrection, the 232-197 vote included 10 Republicans—an unprecedented level of bipartisan support for a presidential impeachment. The Senate voted 57-43 in favor of conviction—insufficient to reach the required two-thirds majority. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who had voted for conviction and paid the ultimate political price by losing his Republican primary in May 2026, stated without regret: “It was a momentous vote.”

The Two Previous Acquittals and the Question of Repetition

The story of Trump’s impeachment offers a bitter lesson about the limits of the constitutional mechanism in a hyperpolarized political landscape. On two previous occasions, the Republican-controlled Senate had acquitted Trump despite strong factual cases, with Republican senators bowing to relentless party discipline rather than an objective assessment of the charges. The same arithmetic threatened to repeat itself. Securing the 67 votes needed in the Senate for a conviction—and potentially a ban on holding any future office—remained a colossal challenge. A June 22, 2026, article in Reason Magazine posed the question bluntly: “Trump survived the two previous impeachments, ran again, and regained the presidency. Is there any reason to believe that the third will yield different results?”

Jamie Raskin, who would be handling the Senate proceedings as the lead impeachment manager, had warned that impeachment was “not a panacea” but “one more tool in the toolbox, which we will use if we have to use it.” Senator Brian Schatz, the likely Democratic whip, had put it bluntly: “Measure twice, cut once.” This third impeachment would likely not be the one to drive Trump out of the White House. But it would etch into the constitutional record a factual dossier of unprecedented depth—a document that history would remember regardless of the outcome of the Senate trial.

This question of the effectiveness of impeachment haunts me. Twice the House has voted, twice the Senate has acquitted. What is the point of a mechanism that doesn’t work? I believe the Founding Fathers designed a system that presupposed a minimum of bipartisan good faith—a good faith that extreme polarization has made structurally impossible. But it would be wrong to conclude that impeachment is useless. The formal indictment of a president who abuses his powers is an act of institutional resistance that matters, even without a conviction. It is a refusal to normalize the abnormal.

Key Players: Jeffries, Raskin, Larson, and the Democratic Machine

Hakeem Jeffries: From a Cautious Strategy to Action

The evolution of Speaker Hakeem Jeffries’s position perfectly illustrates the tension that has run through the Democratic Party over impeachment since the start of Trump’s second term. As recently as early June 2026, at the CNBC CEO Council summit, Jeffries stated that Democrats were “not focused” on impeachment at the moment, emphasizing the message of economic affordability to win back the House. “We haven’t ruled anything out or decided anything,” he admitted on June 14, 2026, on NBC’s Meet the Press—a statement that represented a significant shift from his previous positions.

The midterm victory had freed Jeffries from the electoral dilemma. As Speaker of the House since January 2027, he had launched a rigorous investigative process from the very beginning, entrusting Raskin and the Judiciary Committee with the task of building the strongest possible case. The doctrine of preliminary investigation—“witnesses, documents, audio and video evidence” prior to any vote—had been upheld. Six months of investigation had produced a case file thousands of pages long supporting Larson’s thirteen charges and enriching the factual record with additional elements drawn from sworn testimony.

Jamie Raskin and the Legal Framework of the Indictment

Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland and a renowned constitutional scholar, was the central intellectual figure in the effort. Having already served as lead manager during Trump’s second impeachment in 2021—the one related to the January 6 insurrection—Raskin brought a rare sense of narrative and legal continuity. For months, he had warned that he was “moving very quickly” on a “systematic approach to addressing the ongoing illegality and criminality.” The judicial committee he chaired had held dozens of hearings, summoned witnesses, and examined thousands of classified and unclassified documents to build a case that previous impeachment proceedings had not had the time to construct with such rigor.

Representative John Larson, 77, who had filed the original thirteen articles of impeachment in April 2026—articles drafted with the assistance of constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein and activist Ralph Nader—had unwittingly become the figurehead of the pro-impeachment movement within the caucus. Largely ignored by the media when he filed his articles in the spring of 2026, and challenged in his own primary by younger contenders, he had stood his ground and now saw his work serve as the constitutional foundation for the historic vote on June 22. Politics has its moments of unexpected redemption.

What strikes me about Raskin’s trajectory is its continuity. This man presided over the January 2021 impeachment trial while mourning his recently deceased son; he steered the ship of constitutional responsibility through years of minority opposition; and he found himself once again at the heart of the political machine on June 22, 2026. There is something deeply American about this institutional tenacity. Not glamorous, not viral, but necessary. It is the kind of quiet resilience that ensures democracies do not always die in a single blow.

The reaction from Trump and the White House: skepticism and mobilization

Trump’s Messages: From Prophecy to Anger

Donald Trump’s reaction to the June 22, 2026, election results oscillated between his usual defiance and a certain morbid satisfaction at having been proven right in his predictions. Since January 2026, he had tirelessly repeated to his Republican supporters: “I’ll be impeached if we lose the midterms.” ” The prophecy had come true with almost technical precision. On his social media accounts, Trump had posted a series of messages describing the vote as “the greatest witch hunt in all of history,” which he claimed surpassed the two previous instances from his first term—a superlative repeated three times in a row, as if rhetorical escalation could offset the constitutional gravity of the moment.

At the same time, the White House had activated its counter-communication machine, releasing a 12-page statement contesting each article point by point and promising an “aggressive and total” defense during the Senate trial. Trump had announced that he would testify in person before the Senate—something neither of the two previous presidents had done in similar proceedings—to “restore the truth before the nation.” This spectacular public relations move raised constitutional and strategic questions: testifying under oath exposed Trump to considerable legal risks, but his showman’s instinct seemed to take precedence over his lawyers’ legal calculations.

Mobilizing the Republican Base

In the hours following the vote, online donations to Republican campaign committees had skyrocketed. The Republican National Committee had sent a message to donors describing the impeachment as “a political gift to Republicans for 2028,” echoing the narrative that every impeachment attempt paradoxically strengthened the Trump base. Recent history provided some grounds for this tactical optimism: the first two impeachments during his first term had not prevented Trump from running again and winning in 2024. But the context in 2026 was different: a second term marked by plummeting popularity, persistently high prices, a controversial war in Iran, and palpable fatigue even among traditionally loyal segments of the Republican electorate.

Republican senators found themselves in a delicate position. Senator John Cornyn of Texas had warned in May 2026 that a Democratic House “would use committees as weapons, block legislation, and yes, would almost certainly pursue impeachment.” He was right on all three counts. The question for moderate Republican senators—the Susan Collins, the Lisa Murkowskis, the potential defectors in a Senate vote—was whether the charges piled up in this third case finally crossed the threshold that justified breaking party discipline. The required two-thirds majority was not there, but the path remained narrower than during the two previous acquittals.

The Republican reflex to turn every legal setback into a fundraising tool is both fascinating and distressing. On June 22, 2026, while the U.S. Constitution was carrying out the most serious action it can take against a sitting president, the Republican Party’s digital slot machines were running at full speed. The powerlessness of outrage in the face of political machinery is one of the darkest features of contemporary American democracy. But the constitutional case itself remains. And it does not dissolve into a fundraising email.

Public Opinion and the International Dimension

55% of Americans Support Impeachment: A Historic Threshold

The poll data surrounding this third impeachment were historically significant. A Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll conducted from April 10 to 14, 2026, found that 55% of American adults believed the House should vote to impeach Trump—with 37% opposed and 8% undecided. G. Elliott Morris, the poll’s author, compared this figure to Nixon’s approval rating at the height of the Watergate crisis in August 1974, noting that this analogy placed Trump “in a position comparable to that of Nixon before his resignation.” This was the first time a clear absolute majority of all American adults had supported impeachment at such an early stage of a presidential term.

Among millennials, according to a June 2026 Newsweek report, Trump’s disapproval rating stood at 65%, with an approval rating of only 26%—a net rating of -39 points. Even among Trump’s 2024 voters, a significant fraction expressed support for impeachment in some polls, an unprecedented phenomenon. These figures did not directly influence the House vote—the constitutional process is independent of polls—but they set the context for public opinion that, for the first time, had preceded rather than followed the legislative process in its move toward demanding accountability.

The International Perspective: Concerned Allies, Adversaries Lying in Wait

Internationally, June 22, 2026, was followed with exceptional attention. Allied governments in Western Europe issued measured responses, commending the functioning of U.S. constitutional mechanisms while avoiding taking a position on the substance of the charges. The institutional stability of the United States was a strategic asset for all Western democracies—a country where Congress can exercise effective oversight over the executive branch is a more reliable ally than one where the presidency has become a one-man show.

Less benevolent actors on the world stage—Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Pyongyang—were watching with an interest tinged with opportunism. Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China—two regimes that invest heavily in propaganda about the dysfunction of liberal democracies—would have no qualms about exploiting the apparent paralysis of American institutions to advance their anti-Western narratives. The true strength of American democracy does not lie in the absence of institutional crises—it lies in its ability to weather them through constitutional mechanisms rather than through violence or arbitrariness. On June 22, for the time being, the Constitution was working. That in itself was a response to the West’s adversaries.

I am thinking of Zelenskyy, who has been fighting for years for Ukraine’s integration into a West that sometimes doubts itself. I am thinking of what this impeachment tells the rest of the world: that even the most powerful country on the planet can—and must—hold its president accountable to the rule of law. This is exactly what Putin denies his own citizens, what Xi Jinping denies his own. The American example, even if imperfect, even if painful, is a testament to civilization. And this day, June 22, despite all the partisan noise, has contributed to that testament.

The Senate's Challenge: The Two-Thirds Barrier

Senate Math and Impeachment Scenarios

As soon as the House vote was secured, all eyes turned to the Senate. The situation was clear: the Democrats had held a slim majority since the midterms, but convicting a president requires a two-thirds majority of senators present—that is, 67 votes if all 100 senators vote. With 52 Democratic senators (a favorable scenario following the midterms, according to projections), at least 15 Republican senators would need to be willing to vote for conviction—a number that, in historical precedent, had never been reached. The highest number of dissenting Republicans was seven during the second impeachment in 2021.

However, the context in 2026 introduced some nuances. Several Republican senators were in their final terms and not under pressure to win reelection. Others represented states where Trump’s approval ratings had fallen to historically low levels. Senator Brian Schatz, the likely Democratic whip, had warned that it was “highly likely that we could predict how everyone would vote”—but added that the strategy should be to “measure twice” before striking. Some political analysts believed that a sufficiently strong case regarding war crimes—a bipartisan charge touching on clear constitutional prerogatives—could sway a few Republican conscience voters.

The Prospect of an Acquittal and Its Symbolic Impact

The possibility of a third acquittal for Trump weighed heavily on Democratic strategists. A June 22, 2026, article in Reason Magazine posed the question directly: if Trump had survived the first two impeachments, run for office again, and won the presidency, wouldn’t a third impeachment without conviction risk strengthening his legitimacy rather than weakening it? This was the central argument of those who had long hesitated over the path to impeachment—including Jeffries himself in his public statements in early 2026.

But supporters of impeachment countered that the goal was not solely conviction and removal from office. It was also the creation of an indelible historical record: a factual dossier, compiled under oath and accessible to future generations, documenting the abuses of a second term that history would judge free from the distortions of current polarization. Impeachment, viewed this way, was less an instrument of immediate justice than an act of institutional memory—refusing to let the abnormal pass without naming it and recording it in the annals of the Republic.

I understand the cynicism of those who say that impeachment without conviction is mere theater. But I reject that conclusion. The institutionalists are right on one point: to let the unacceptable pass without recording it in the constitutional record is to set a precedent of permissiveness far more dangerous than the powerlessness of an acquittal. Every impeachment, even one that results in an acquittal, draws a line. It says: this kind of behavior is not normal. It will not be normalized. And even Trump cannot erase that with a tweet or a symbolic resolution from the Republican-controlled Congress.

The Attempt to Expunge: The Trumpian Paradox

Trump wanted to erase history, but history had other plans

One of the most striking ironies of June 22, 2026, was that, just a few days before the impeachment vote, Trump had asked Congress to symbolically erase his first two impeachments. According to reports confirmed by the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian on June 12, 2026, Trump had discussed with outgoing Republican Speaker Mike Johnson the possibility of a resolution to “expunge” the first two impeachments from his first term, with legal scholar Alan Dershowitz involved in the deliberations. Trump had stated: “It should be done because I didn’t do anything wrong. It was rigged—the whole situation was rigged.”

Constitutional experts immediately dismissed any legal merit of such a resolution: the Constitution provides no mechanism for overturning an impeachment once it has been voted on by the House. Expungement resolutions cannot erase either history or the votes recorded in the National Archives. The attempt to rewrite institutional history ran up against the immutable facts of the Constitution—and, ironically, the commotion surrounding this request helped bring the memory of the first two impeachments back into the news, giving Democrats an additional narrative just weeks before the third vote. Trump had, once again, unwittingly made his opponents’ task easier.

The Inability to Erase and the Symbolic Weight of the Third Act

The impossibility of erasing the previous impeachments underscored a fundamental truth about the nature of constitutional acts: they exist, immutable, in the Republic’s record. Andrew Johnson remains impeached. Bill Clinton remains impeached. Donald Trump remained twice impeached—and now thrice so. DNI Tulsi Gabbard, for her part, had released documents on June 20, 2026, claiming to expose a “conspiracy” by the intelligence community to fabricate the grounds for the first impeachment in 2019—an attempt to rewrite history that experts had met with skepticism and that the documented facts of the 2026 case rendered obsolete in any event.

The third impeachment was part of a continuum that made the “witch hunt” argument increasingly difficult to sustain empirically. Three different chambers—two with Democratic majorities during the first term, one with a Democratic majority during the second term—had all determined that Donald Trump’s actions crossed the constitutional threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The consensus on his guilt transcended shifting partisan dynamics. History, unlike a symbolic resolution, cannot be expunged.

The request for expungement struck me as the most revealing admission Trump has ever made about himself. A president truly convinced that he acted within the bounds of the law has no need to erase the record. It is the act of a man who knows, deep down, that history’s judgment will not be in his favor—and who is trying to cover his tracks. But the U.S. Constitution cannot be expunged. And this third impeachment, on June 22, 2026, is now etched into the annals of history—a record that cannot be erased. In a way, that is exactly what it was meant to do.

Conclusion: A mechanism that holds up, a verdict that remains open

What June 22, 2026, Tells Us About American Democracy

The impeachment vote on June 22, 2026, does not resolve the fundamental question of whether American democracy has the tools to rein in an executive who rejects constitutional limits. It does not guarantee a Senate conviction. It does not end the Trump presidency. But it does something important and real: it rejects normalization. It declares, on behalf of the American people represented in the House, that this president’s documented actions cross the line that the Founding Fathers drew in their Constitution. Whether or not the impeachment is followed by a conviction, this act exists—public, permanent—and it matters in the long arc of republican history.

The West is watching. Allies are watching. The adversaries of liberal democracy are watching too—Putin, Xi, and the authoritarian regimes that are waiting for the moment when America ceases to believe in its own institutions so they can deal the fatal blow to the liberal international order. On June 22, the U.S. Constitution stood firm. Congress exercised its power of oversight. This is insufficient for the impatient, but it is indispensable for institutionalists. And in the long run, it is the institutionalists who are right—because without functioning institutions, there is no democracy, no West, and no bulwark against the authoritarian barbarism lurking at the gates.

What Remains to Be Done: The Senate Trial and What’s at Stake

The coming weeks promise to be a new chapter in this constitutional saga. The Senate trial, presided over by the Chief Justice in accordance with constitutional rules, will provide a national public forum for a debate that Americans will have to grapple with. The impeachment managers appointed by Jeffries—with Raskin as their figurehead—will have to present a complex case before 100 senators, including a Republican majority that has every political reason to resist. The two-thirds threshold remains the arithmetic Everest that protected Trump during his two previous Senate trials.

But even if an acquittal occurs—and that remains likely—June 22, 2026, will have accomplished what democratic institutions are supposed to accomplish: making visible, public, and constitutional what cannot remain unspoken. America did not die by its institutions that day. It made them work, despite everything. It is a minor victory in a long war—but minor victories on the institutional front are the building blocks of lasting democracies. And lasting democracies are exactly what the West needs to survive the coming century.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist