One of Donald Trump’s dubious first-term accomplishments was becoming just the third president to be formally impeached and the first to be impeached twice (yes, his second impeachment by the House happened a week before he left office, even though his trial and acquittal by the Senate occurred when he was an ex-president). Now, there’s growing talk among congressional Democrats that a third impeachment may be in order if the Democratic Party flips control of the House in 2026, thus putting it in position to consider such a step (a chamber controlled by Trump’s vassal Mike Johnson is less likely to entertain an impeachment resolution than to petition Canada to make the U.S. its 11th province).

Michigan Democrat Shri Thanedar recently introduced new articles of impeachment against Trump, the first of his second term. Thanedar is a House incumbent fighting to head off progressive primary opposition in a heavily Democratic Detroit district, so this sort of gesture is to be expected. It’s more interesting that Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia has publicly said impeachment should be on the table if Democrats flip the House. Ossoff won in his red-leaning state by an eyelash in a January 2021 general-election runoff and is considered highly vulnerable as he runs for a second term in 2026, particularly if term-limited Republican governor Brian Kemp takes him on. He should have no significant primary opposition and doesn’t really need to do anything to cleave the Democratic base to his campaign. If Ossoff thinks support for impeaching Trump may be a good general-election issue in Georgia, that is eyebrow-raising to say the least.

If, however, you compare what Trump was impeached for earlier with what he has already done in 2025, the case for a third impeachment looks pretty strong.

The first impeachment, in December 2019, concerned a complex case involving both Trump’s thinly veiled effort to ensnare Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelenskyy in a scheme to accuse Joe Biden of corruption and Trump’s obstruction of congressional inquiries into the incident. There were legitimate questions as to whether his misconduct met the constitutional threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” even though his tendency to court the appearance of impropriety made sanctions unavoidable.

The second impeachment followed the Capitol Riot of January 6, 2021, and was vastly less complicated; the misconduct in question was precisely the sort of thing (an attempted insurrection) the Founders had in mind when providing for impeachments. But some factual questions lingered about the extent to which Trump had ordered the attack on the Capitol and whether it was even possible to hold an impeachment trial for someone no longer in office.

Trump’s 2025 abuses of power, lawless actions against his perceived enemies, and unconstitutional power grabs are as wide-ranging as the Ukraine brouhaha was narrow. And there is zero doubt about the president’s responsibility for these outrages since most of them stem from executive orders he signed. So it was easy for Thanedar to come up with quite a list of draft articles:

1. Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Executive Power: Including denial of due process, unlawful deportations, defiance of court orders, and misuse of the Department of Justice.

2. Usurpation of Appropriations Power: For dismantling congressionally established agencies and impounding federal funds.

3. Abuse of Trade Powers and International Aggression: Including imposing economically damaging tariffs and threatening military invasion against sovereign nations.

4. Violation of First Amendment Rights: Through retaliatory actions against critics, media, and attorneys exercising constitutionally protected speech.

5. Creation of an Unlawful Office: By establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) and unlawfully empowering Elon Musk to unilaterally violate the Constitution.

6. Bribery and Corruption: Involving dismissing criminal cases, soliciting foreign emoluments, and extortionate settlements for personal and political gain.

7. Tyrannical Overreach: Seeking to consolidate unchecked power, erode civil liberties, and defy constitutional limits on presidential authority.

This seventh article is a bit of a catchall, but there’s plenty of meat on the rest of the bones. And Team Trump is taking the threat seriously enough that it’s reportedly “war-gaming” an impeachment defense on grounds that otherwise it could distract from everything else the administration is doing. It’s also more than possible that Republicans would use the threat of an impeachment to mobilize the MAGA base for the 2026 midterms; otherwise, there are major concerns about GOP turnout in an election without Trump on the ballot. The tactic worked for former president Bill Clinton back in 1998, when Democrats pulled off the rare feat of making midterm House gains while controlling the White House thanks to an impending GOP impeachment bid. Nothing would please Trump more than to play the victim of partisan persecution again despite his total control of the federal government and his own incredible levels of vituperative action and rhetoric.

In the end, of course, even if Democrats do control the House in 2027, they have to decide whether it’s worth the trouble to impeach Trump a third time knowing that he will almost certainly be acquitted yet again owing to the two-thirds requirement for conviction in Senate impeachment trials. Odds are they’ll try to hold Trump accountable even though he’ll escape conviction. It’s not like he will quietly adopt the role of a lame duck before being evicted from the White House at the end of his final term.

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