President Trump on Wednesday suggested that if Congress voted to impeach him, the Supreme Court would be able to stop it from happening.

“If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Trump tweeted. “Not only … are there no 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors,' there are no Crimes by me at all.”

The U.S. Constitution dictates that impeachment is a power assigned solely to Congress.

"The House ... shall have the sole Power of Impeachment," according to Clause Five, Section Two in Article One of the Constitution. And Section Three of Article One states, "The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments."

Though the chief justice of the United States rules over impeachment proceedings, the court cannot overturn an impeachment vote.

Two presidents have been impeached by the House, requiring a majority vote — Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Johnson came within a single Senate vote of being convicted and removed from office, with the tally just short of the two-thirds threshold necessary. In Clinton's case, both impeachment counts sent over from the House failed to win even a majority vote in the Senate, let alone two-thirds.

President Richard Nixon came closest to removal from office. In 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted out two articles of impeachment related to the Watergate scandal. The Senate was virtually certain to convict and remove Nixon from the White House, so he resigned instead.

In the Trump era, some contend the Supreme Court has more power in impeachment proceedings than it has previously been given credit for. In his 2018 book, The Case Against Impeaching Trump legal scholar Alan Dershowitz claims the Supreme Court could potentially intervene, citing its 2000 decision effectively placing George W. Bush in the White House over Democratic rival Al Gore.

"A Supreme Court that inserted itself into the Bush v. Gore election in order to avoid a constitutional crisis might well decide to review a House decision to impeach and a Senate decision to remove a president who is not accused and convicted of a specified constitutional crime," Dershowitz writes.

[Read more: Hillary Clinton dishes on her 'weird personal history' with impeachment]


Trump on Wednesday also suggested leading Democrats like 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, and the party's congressional leadership, should have their conduct scrutinized by the media and public.

“All of the Crimes were committed by Crooked Hillary, the Dems, the DNC and Dirty Cops - and we caught them in the act,” Trump said. “We waited for Mueller and WON, so now the Dems look to Congress as last hope!”

After the Justice Department released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report last week, Democrats have ramped up investigatory efforts of the Trump White House, including issuing subpoenas for current and former administration officials to testify before Congress.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said over the weekend he believes evidence of obstruction of justice is present in the Mueller report and Trump’s conduct is grounds for impeachment. Nadler and other party leaders, though, are not currently advocating for an impeachment inquiry, despite calls to do so from elements of the party's far-left flank.


Still, the president derided Nadler and other critics as political hacks hell-bent on removing him from office with no justification.

“The Mueller Report, despite being written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters, and with unlimited money behind it ($35,000,000), didn’t lay a glove on me,” Trump said. “I DID NOTHING WRONG.”