Trump appears en route to becoming the third president to remain in office after a Senate impeachment trial

Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared en route to becoming the third US president to remain in office following acquittal in a Senate impeachment trial. But what might it mean for Trump’s future that he was impeached at all?

What are the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump? Read more

Here’s a look at the two previous impeachment cases, and at the one case in which a president resigned in the face of impeachment. Visit our previous coverage for more details of why past presidents were impeached.

Impeachment No 1: Andrew Johnson (1868)

Even if Trump does not win re-election in 2020, he will be hard-pressed to match Andrew Johnson for a disastrous post-impeachment career. The Republican party’s embrace of Trump has only grown with impeachment. By contrast, the Democratic party turned its back on Johnson in 1868, declining to nominate him for a new term. (As Abraham Lincoln’s vice-president, Johnson was elevated to the presidency in 1865 after Lincoln’s assassination.)

Johnson’s return to private life was rocky. His son committed suicide, he mounted a failed US Senate bid and he contracted cholera. But then, six years after leaving office, he won election to the US Senate from Tennessee, only to die later that year from multiple strokes at 66. He is a mainstay on lists of history’s worst American presidents.

Impeachment No 2: Bill Clinton (1999)

Bill Clinton has the distinction of being the most popular US president at the time to be impeached. He enjoyed a 61% approval rating in January 1998, before his denial in a sworn deposition that he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

A month later, benefiting from “widespread support for his policies and skepticism about the media’s coverage of the allegations”, according to a Pew Research study, Clinton’s approval rating was 10 points higher at 71%.

While Clinton at the time of his impeachment was leagues ahead of Trump in terms of popularity, a Gallup poll published on Tuesday indicated that Trump’s approval rating has likewise climbed to near all-time highs post-impeachment, with 49% of respondents giving him good marks.

However, a renewed focus on past sexual assault allegations against Clinton in the #MeToo era and a reconsideration of the power dynamics of his relationship with Lewinsky have diminished his public standing in recent years.

“I now see how problematic it was that the two of us even got to a place where there was a question of consent,” Lewinsky wrote in Vanity Fair in 2018. “Instead, the road that led there was littered with inappropriate abuse of authority, station and privilege.”

Near miss: Richard Nixon (1974)

Richard Nixon resigned under pressure from fellow Republicans before he could be impeached. But the story of his near-impeachment, in terms of his personal popularity, runs exactly counter to the Clinton case.

Post-re-election in 1972, Nixon enjoyed a 68% approval rating. But a break-in at the Watergate hotel engineered by members of his re-election team had planted the seeds for his downfall. By April 1973, Nixon’s approval had fallen to 48%, still higher than Trump’s average. But unlike Trump, Nixon kept dropping, to hit 24% approval by the time he resigned.

A few years after receiving a pardon from Gerald Ford, Nixon granted a series of interviews to the journalist David Frost, telling him: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” – but also admitting: “I let down the country.”

Nixon lived for 20 years after his resignation, mixing semi-official travel with book-writing, speeches and other public appearances. He won the occasional White House invitation and opened a presidential library. His face is tattooed on Roger Stone’s back.