when the senate receives the resolution that body advises the house when it will receive the managers and begin the impeachment trial the senate becomes the court with the president of the senate presiding except when the person impeached is the president in which case the presiding officer is the chief justice of the supreme court to convict and remove an impeached individual from office requires a two thirds majority in the senate 
penalties of impeachment and convictionthe penalty for impeachment is a trial in the senate because impeachment is the same as an indictment there is no other penalty except perhaps to one s reputation impeachment as discussed above only requires a simple affirmative majority in the house of representatives the constitution requires a two thirds affirmative vote in the senate to convict an impeached person the penalty for conviction is removal from office the senate also has the option by simple majority vote to disqualify the official from holding public office in the future there is no appeal to impeachment or conviction because it involves a political rather than criminal question 12history of federal impeachment proceedingsof the 20 federal impeachment proceedings since 1799 10 have occurred in the past 100 years impeached officials included 15 federal judges three presidents one senator and a cabinet secretary the secretary of war these impeachments resulted in seven acquittals eight convictions all judges and they were removed from office three dismissals and one resignation with no further action 13as discussed earlier only three u s presidents have been impeached by the house andrew johnson bill clinton and donald trump and all were acquitted by the senate 13 president richard nixon was never impeached although he was threatened with impeachment over the watergate scandal of 1974 14 nixon stepped down before congress could vote on whether to proceed with impeachment becoming the only u s president to have resigned from office 15real life example of impeachmenta recent impeachment and senate trial occurred when former president trump was impeached by the house of representatives on dec 18 2019 the resolution contained two impeachment articles 16this example of high crimes and misdemeanors accused trump of corruptly attempting to solicit ukraine to conduct investigations to discredit his democratic political rivals the article passed 230 197 with republican members of the house united in their opposition and two democrats also voting against the article 17the obstruction of congress charge which also fell under high crimes and misdemeanors arose from accusations that when congress tried to investigate the ukraine situation trump ordered his administration to defy each attempt at obtaining information and testimony this article passed 229 198 with one additional democrat joining republicans in opposition to the charge 18the articles of impeachment were submitted to the senate on jan 16 2020 and the trial began due to objections by republican senators no witnesses or documents were subpoenaed on feb 5 2020 the president was acquitted on both counts the vote on article i abuse of power was 48 for conviction 52 for acquittal on article ii obstruction of congress the vote was 47 for conviction 53 for acquittal 18from start to finish not counting the accumulation of evidence these impeachment proceedings took a little less than two months that said there is no set amount of time for impeachments and very few specifics about it in the constitution for that reason every impeachment is unique 