Removal of the president

Article II: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

25th Amendment: “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

This provision of the 25th Amendment has never been used. As a first step, the vice president must be willing to say that the person who chose him for that role is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Then a majority of the “principal officers of the executive departments” must be willing to sign a “written declaration” to trigger removal.

A House Judiciary Committee report from 1965 clarifies “principal officers of the executive departments” as being “Presidential appointees who direct the 10 executive departments … or any executive department established in the future (now 12), generally considered to comprise the President’s Cabinet” (H.R. Rep. No. 89-203, at 3; 1965).

Congress has not provided another body to serve as an alternative to the cabinet.

Achieving a majority of cabinet members willing to vote for the removal of their president, with the support of the vice president, seems unlikely, absent an event or condition that would be of indisputable negative consequence. If the presidential slate had only the record of nearly any previous president, it would surely not result in removal.

With Donald J. Trump, the case is much stronger, but made less likely to succeed because the bar has gone so low in terms of presidential performance and character. From many facts, two may be sufficient: conviction by a jury of 32 felony crimes and the Easter 2026 performance. Neither of these has prompted more from his Republican colleagues than a few murmurs.

The power of impeachment appears to be a more promising tool than relying on the 25th Amendment. That was also the conclusion reached by journalist Evan Osnos, “How Trump Could Get Fired,” New Yorker, May 8, 2017. Obviously, this has been under serious consideration for a long time.

See also: Goldstein, Joel K., “Talking Trump and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Correcting the Record on Section 4,” Journal of Constitutional Law, vol. 21, no.1, 2018 (scholarship.law.slu.edu/faculty/141).

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Keith Mobley, of Dufur, is a retired lawyer who was a Republican candidate for the Oregon House of Representatives in 1980. He grew up on a wheat and cattle ranch near Shaniko.