An investigation, not a prediction
The Third Impeachment?
The charges keep coming. Congress keeps turning away.
Donald Trump’s opponents have accused him of abusing power over war, immigration and public money. Turning those accusations into a third impeachment has exposed a divide among Democrats—and the limits of a Congress unwilling to pursue the case.
Explore the record ↓︎
Why the accusations have not become an impeachment.
On September 15, 2026, the House set aside another attempt to impeach Donald Trump. The measure concerned immigration enforcement; an earlier effort had concerned his strikes on Iran. Both ended before the House approved an article. The votes exposed a problem that the scale of the accusations alone could not overcome: Trump’s opponents disagreed over how to proceed, while the Republican majority in the 119th Congress controlled the institution they needed to act. To understand how Congress reached that point, begin with the charges filed in the opening months of his second term.
01Establish what Trump did: the orders he gave, the authority he claimed and the consequences that followed.
02Show why it warrants impeachment: connect the evidence to a specific abuse of presidential power.
03Secure the votes: a House majority can impeach; conviction requires two-thirds of senators present.Related passages: The second impeachment vote →︎
The documentary record
Claims meet evidence.
Updated October 7, 2026 · the cited voting records and source documents were checked for this account.
The first case challenged the presidency as a whole.
In April 2025, Representative Shri Thanedar introduced seven proposed articles of impeachment. His resolution, H.Res.353, treated the disputes of Trump’s opening months as parts of a wider abuse of presidential power. It accused him of violating due process, overriding Congress’s control of spending, abusing trade authority and restricting protected speech. It also challenged DOGE and alleged corruption.
The breadth of the resolution was its defining feature. Thanedar was asking Congress to consider how the administration governed across several areas at once: whether the president could withhold money Congress had authorized, use state power against critics or benefit privately from public office. These were allegations set out by a member of Congress, with the burden of establishing them still ahead.
Introducing the resolution put those accusations into the congressional record. It did not commit the House to an investigation, let alone a vote to impeach. That distance between a member making the charge and Congress taking it up would become the recurring problem for the efforts that followed.
The Iran strikes brought the dispute to a vote.
Two months later, Representative Al Green sought impeachment over a particular exercise of presidential power: Trump’s strikes on Iran. H.Res.537 alleged that the president had abused his authority and violated Congress’s role in decisions about war. The dispute now came before the House in a form that required members to choose whether to set the measure aside.Related passages: Congress and the Iran strikes →︎
On June 24, 2025, they did so by 344 votes to 79. All 216 Republicans who voted supported tabling it. So did 128 Democrats. The 79 votes against shelving the measure all came from Democrats, leaving Green unable to unite even his own side of the chamber.
The result revealed the immediate political barrier. Whatever members thought of the strikes, a large majority would not let this impeachment effort proceed. Their vote disposed of the measure without resolving the underlying dispute over the president’s authority to order the attack.Related passages: Congress and the Iran strikes →︎
Immigration brought another charge—and a divided opposition.
Green returned with H.Res.1486, announced on August 24, 2026, alleging abuse of immigration-enforcement powers. On September 15, the House again voted to table the measure: 232 in favor, 147 against and 47 voting present. The September 2026 attempt had run into the same institution, but the disagreement among Trump’s critics deserved a closer look.
Representative Jennifer McClellan voted present. In her explanation, she said the administration’s conduct warranted scrutiny and that Trump likely had committed impeachable offenses. She also said Congress had not established the record needed to support articles of impeachment or a conviction in the Senate. She wanted evidence collected, witnesses examined and hearings held, and said she did not trust the Republican majority in the 119th Congress to carry out that investigation.
Her position described a difficulty for Democrats demanding accountability: some wanted the House to act on the abuses they believed were already apparent; McClellan wanted the investigation that could support the charge, while doubting that those in control would conduct it. Her statement explains her vote, not every Democrat’s. It nevertheless shows how opposition to Trump could end in different choices when an impeachment measure reached the floor.
What an investigation would have to establish.
McClellan’s objection leads to the work that sits between an accusation and a case Congress could try. In the disputes over war and immigration, investigators would have to establish what Trump authorized, what officials did in response and which powers they relied on. A record of harmful conduct matters; so does the evidence connecting that conduct to the president.
For the Iran strikes, the documents would include the administration’s account of its legal authority and its notifications to Congress. For immigration enforcement, orders, testimony and court findings could establish how decisions were made and carried out. Those records help distinguish a president’s direction from an action taken elsewhere in the government, and an established fact from a disputed allegation.Related passages: Congress and the Iran strikes →︎ · Immigration enforcement in the second term →︎
Courts may resolve part of that factual or legal dispute. Congress would still have to explain why the conduct it established warranted impeachment. The investigations linked below allow readers to follow the underlying controversies before reaching that constitutional judgment.
The questions about money and retaliation remain.
The focus on Iran and immigration leaves other accusations in Thanedar’s resolution unresolved. Allegations of personal enrichment, retaliation against critics and interference with congressional spending all concern the boundaries between the president’s interests and the powers entrusted to his office. They require a record of their own.Related passages: The family’s business interests →︎
In a financial case, that means establishing who received a benefit, what official action occurred and what evidence connects the two. In a retaliation case, the record would need to show how government power was used against a critic and the justification offered for it. In a spending dispute, Congress would have to identify the decision the executive branch had overridden and the authority it claimed.
The connected investigations below examine gifts, legal pressure and executive orders. They offer places to begin that inquiry. Bringing several troubling episodes together can reveal questions worth pursuing; proving a particular charge still requires Congress to trace the decisions and responsibility behind it.
The House would only be the first hurdle.
Even if a future House approved an article, Trump would remain president while the process moved to the Senate. Impeachment is the House’s decision to bring a charge. Removal requires conviction at a Senate trial, with two-thirds of the senators present voting for it. The majority needed in one chamber cannot substitute for the much larger share needed in the other.Related passages: The second impeachment vote →︎
That is why the votes on these resolutions matter alongside the allegations. In June 2025 and September 2026, the efforts could not get past motions to set them aside in the House. A Senate trial was still another stage beyond reach. Those results describe the support the measures had at the time; they do not tell us how members would respond to a different case or a fuller investigative record.Related passages: The second impeachment vote →︎
Through September 2026, Congress had received the accusations and declined to advance the impeachment efforts. Members can introduce another resolution. To turn it into a third impeachment, they would have to build a case their colleagues were prepared to adopt—and persuade Congress to use the power it has so far withheld.