Impeachment Trivia
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49 free Impeachment trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Four US presidents have been impeached and none convicted, one resigned before the House could vote, and a Supreme Court justice, a war secretary and a dozen judges have faced the Senate too. These impeachment trivia questions cover how the process works, every presidential case, the judges and officials who were actually removed, and famous impeachments from Brazil to South Korea. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Founding Father wrote Federalist 65, arguing that the Senate should try impeachments?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton called the Supreme Court an improper substitute and described impeachable offenses as abuses 'of some public trust'.
Q 02Which Texas congresswoman declared 'My faith in the Constitution is whole' at the 1974 Nixon impeachment hearings?
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan said the 1787 Constitution's 'We, the people' had left her out, but amendment, interpretation and court decision had finally included her.
Q 03The Constitution limits impeachable offences to treason, bribery and what else?
High crimes and misdemeanors
High crimes and misdemeanors was George Mason's proposal, a phrase borrowed from British practice, after vaguer wording like 'maladministration' was floated.
Q 04Which presidential power does the Constitution explicitly withhold in impeachment cases?
The pardon
The pardon cannot touch an impeachment, while a removed official can still be indicted and tried under ordinary law.
Q 05Which House Speaker stepped down after Republicans lost seats in the 1998 midterms, weeks before Bill Clinton's impeachment?
Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich had once forced Speaker Jim Wright to resign by pressing ethics charges over Wright's financial dealings.
Q 06Whose 1797 impeachment ended with the Senate dismissing the charges for want of jurisdiction?
William Blount
William Blount had plotted to help Britain seize Spanish-controlled territory, and the Senate expelled him before his trial.
Q 07Who was the first US official ever convicted and removed by the Senate, in 1804?
John Pickering
John Pickering was removed on charges of drunkenness on the bench and unlawful rulings in a property case.
Q 08Who is the only Supreme Court justice ever impeached?
Samuel Chase
Samuel Chase was acquitted in 1805, a verdict that helped protect the judiciary from removals driven by disapproval of rulings.
Q 09Which law was Andrew Johnson accused of violating when he fired Edwin Stanton?
The Tenure of Office Act
The Tenure of Office Act was repealed in 1887, and in 1926 the Supreme Court signalled that such a law was unconstitutional.
Q 10Which Pennsylvania Radical Republican was one of the House managers at Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial?
Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens was one of seven House managers, but the Senate fell one vote short of convicting Johnson, and Stevens died that August.
Q 11Which president's own Whig party expelled him and then tried to impeach him?
John Tyler
All but one of John Tyler's cabinet resigned after he vetoed bills to create a national bank.
Q 12Which Kansas senator's vote to acquit Andrew Johnson helped leave the Senate one vote short of conviction?
Edmund G. Ross
Edmund G. Ross was one of the Republicans who defied their party to acquit Johnson, and he failed to win reelection in 1871.
Q 13Which Grant cabinet member was impeached in 1876 hours after resigning?
William Belknap
William Belknap was accused of taking kickbacks for appointing a trader to run the lucrative military trading post at Fort Sill.
Q 21Which senator voted 'not proven', a verdict borrowed from Scots law, at Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial?
Arlen Specter
Arlen Specter said the case against Clinton had not been proved, and the Senate recorded both of his votes as not guilty.
Q 22Who secretly recorded Monica Lewinsky describing her relationship with Clinton?
Linda Tripp
Linda Tripp befriended Lewinsky at the Pentagon, then handed her secret recordings to the independent counsel's investigators in January 1998.
Q 23What were the two articles in Donald Trump's first impeachment?
Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress
Q 14Whose firing as Watergate special prosecutor in October 1973 became known as the 'Saturday Night Massacre'?
Archibald Cox
Archibald Cox was fired for refusing to stop demanding Nixon's tapes, and top Justice Department officials resigned in protest.
Q 15What was the recording Nixon made public in August 1974 nicknamed?
The smoking gun tape
The smoking gun tape caught Nixon approving a plan to have the CIA block the FBI's Watergate inquiry, and he resigned days after its release.
Q 16Who introduced the first resolution calling for Nixon's impeachment, in July 1973?
Robert Drinan
Robert Drinan's call had nothing to do with Watergate: the Jesuit congressman objected to Nixon's undeclared war against Cambodia.
Q 17The House impeached Bill Clinton for obstruction of justice and for lying under oath to what?
A federal grand jury
A federal grand jury heard the testimony behind the first article, while the House rejected two other articles, one of them abuse of power.
Q 18Whose sexual harassment lawsuit set the Clinton impeachment in motion?
Paula Jones
Paula Jones's lawsuit reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in May 1997 that a sitting president was not immune from it.
Q 19Which independent counsel's September 1998 report triggered Clinton's impeachment?
Ken Starr
Ken Starr was first named in 1994 to investigate Whitewater, an Arkansas land deal, before the Lewinsky affair became his focus.
Q 20Which Chief Justice presided over Clinton's Senate trial?
William Rehnquist
William Rehnquist upheld Senator Tom Harkin's objection to calling senators jurors, ruling that the Senate sat as a court.
Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress both arose from Trump's dealings with Ukraine, and the Senate acquitted him on both in February 2020.
Q 24Which Ukrainian president was Trump accused of pressuring to investigate Joe Biden, leading to his first impeachment?
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a comedian who had played a fictional president on TV before he won the real office in 2019.
Q 25What prompted the House's formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump in September 2019?
A whistleblower complaint
A whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump had pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in return for foreign aid.
Q 26Who became the first senator ever to vote to convict a president from his own party?
Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney explained his vote by calling the corruption of an election perhaps the worst violation of an oath of office he could imagine.
Q 27What was the single article in Trump's second impeachment?
Incitement of insurrection
Incitement of insurrection was charged after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, making Trump the first president impeached twice.
Q 28Which third-ranking House Republican voted to impeach Donald Trump in January 2021?
Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney had voted against Trump's first impeachment, and backlash over her break with him later ended her House career.
Q 29Who was the lead House manager at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial in 2021?
Jamie Raskin
Jamie Raskin had helped introduce the article of impeachment himself, alongside Representatives David Cicilline and Ted Lieu.
Q 30What made Trump's second Senate trial constitutionally unusual?
It began after he left office
It began after he left office, so senators first voted on whether trying a former president was constitutional, ruled that it was, and later acquitted him.