In The News Quiz January 25 2021

Weekly Quiz 2: Monday, January 25 2021

The Impeachment(s) of President Trump

This week Donald Trump became the only U.S. president—or holder of any government office—to be impeached twice. First the U.S. House of Representatives, which under the Constitution initiates impeachment proceedings, voted in 2019 to impeach Trump for asking Ukraine’s president to investigate his eventual opponent, Joe Biden. The Senate, also as specified by the Constitution, then held a trial and (by a party-line vote) found the president not guilty. A little over a year later, Trump’s speech inciting his supporters to break into the U.S. Capitol led the House to again impeach the president.

Impeachment, imagined by the Framers as a means of avoiding “corruption and treachery,” as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 66, has been used rarely in U.S. history. In the 230 years before Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, only three presidents were charged in the House, with Richard Nixon retiring before impeachment articles were formally voted on. Now President Trump has been subject to this dramatic penalty twice in two years. How would you rank Donald Trump among American presidents: near the top, in the middle, or at the bottom?

Read the following articles that detail some of these issues:


. Name the U.S. presidents who have been impeached by Congress.

. What basic principle of U.S. government does impeachment uphold? (Name all that apply.)

. What was Donald Trump charged with when he was first impeached, in 2019?

. How many House Republicans voted in favor of impeaching President Trump in 2021?

Back to top