Pour quels motifs peut-on être destitué?

Si de hauts fonctionnaires américains ont déjà été destitués, aucun président à ce jour n'est tombé à la suite de cette procédure. Richard Nixon a préféré quitter au début de la procédure alors que Bill Clinton et Andrew Johnson ont survécu. Rien de dit que Donald Trump devra se soumettre à cette pénible épreuve, mais le New York Times en profite pour revenir sur le contexte dans lequel les Pères fondateurs ont inséré cet outil dans la constitution. Une chose est sûre, le recours à la corruption pour se hisser à la présidence les hantait.

 "Of course, bribery is not the same thing as depriving voters of information by paying hush money. But both interfere with the democratic process, said Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, the other author of “To End a Presidency” and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump.

“The felonies of which Cohen, in statements that were self-incriminating and thus particularly trustworthy, accused his former client, the president, didn’t literally involve bribery,” he said, referring to Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, “but certainly involved criminal conduct designed to reduce the risk that disclosure of his extramarital affairs and dalliances on the eve of the election would cost him the votes he ended up needing in places like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”

Most scholars agree that the impeachment clause covers abuse of official power by a sitting president but not wholly private conduct committed before assuming office."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/us/politics/offense-impeachable-constitution.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage