As the historic impeachment votes for President Clinton loom in the U.S. House of Representative, some may ask exactly what that means.

If the president is impeached by the House, will he actually become the first chief executive to be removed from office?

The U.S. Constitution established the impeachment process to remove the "President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States," i.e., cabinet officers and federal judges, from office, when their conduct is believed to have so damaged the public's confidence in their ability to perform their official duties that they must be removed.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the sole power to impeach to the House of Representatives. Section 3 gives the Senate the power to try all impeachments.

Essentially, an impeachment is the political equivalent of a criminal indictment or charge. When the House impeaches (charges) the official, the matter is sent to the Senate for trial. All 100 senators act as jurors and the proceeding is presided over by the chief justice of the United States.

The Senate trial resembles a criminal proceeding, with a team of House members from both parties functioning as prosecutors. The impeached official is defended by legal counsel, but is not required to be present at the proceedings. Both sides may call witnesses and may cross-examine the witnesses of their opponents.

The Senate has full authority to establish the trial procedures in any way it sees fit, to include having a special committee hear all evidence, instead of the full Senate.

Once all evidence is heard, all 100 senators debate the charges in closed session, but are required to vote on conviction in public. A two-thirds majority (or 67) is required to convict. If convicted, the official is removed from office.

The impeachment process calls for no further sanctions, neither a prison sentence nor fines. The Senate can, on a separate, simple majority vote, "disqualify" the convicted official from holding any other federal office again.

The last public official impeached, tried, convicted and removed from office was Judge Walter Nixon in 1989. No president has ever been removed from office through impeachment and only one other president faced an impeachment trial in the Senate. President Andrew Johnson was retained in office by just one vote in 1868.

The only other president to have been subjected to the impeachment process, Richard M. Nixon, resigned in 1974 before the full House could vote on the three articles of impeachment passed by the House Judiciary Committee. [[In-content Ad]]