In the past fifty-years, how many US Presidents have had articles of impeachment brought against?
Executive summary
Two U.S. presidents have had articles of impeachment actually approved by the House of Representatives during the past fifty years (roughly 1976–2026): Bill Clinton and Donald Trump; Trump was impeached twice by the House, while Clinton was impeached once [1] [2] [3]. Historical near-misses — most notably Richard Nixon’s resignation amid Watergate — fall just outside the fifty‑year timeframe for formal House approval in that period [4] [1].
1. The narrow, literal answer: two presidents in the last fifty years
Counting only cases where the House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment, two presidents meet that standard in the period under review: Bill Clinton (House-approved articles in December 1998) and Donald Trump (House-approved articles in December 2019 and again in January 2021) [2] [1] [4]. Official summaries and government guides tally impeachments by the act of the House adopting articles; those sources list Clinton and Trump among the small set of presidents ever impeached [5] [6].
2. Why this specific phrasing matters: “had articles of impeachment brought against” versus “impeachment efforts”
News and secondary sources often conflate numerous introduction attempts with formal impeachment. Members of Congress can introduce impeachment resolutions or calls for inquiry, and many such efforts occur without the Judiciary Committee or the full House ever approving articles [7]. Authoritative counts — like the House historical list and the federal impeachment guides — treat a president as “impeached” only if the House adopts articles, which is the metric used here [6] [5].
3. Cases on the books: Clinton and Trump, and how they unfolded
Bill Clinton’s impeachment grew from the Starr investigation and related proceedings; the House approved two articles (perjury and obstruction) in December 1998, and the Senate acquitted him in February 1999 [2] [3]. Donald Trump faced two distinct House impeachments: the first in late 2019 over Ukraine-related abuse-of-power and obstruction charges, and the second after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol; both resulted in Senate acquittals (or, for the second, an acquittal after he had left office) [1] [2].
4. Near-misses and partial actions that complicate public impressions
High-profile impeachment dramas that did not culminate in House‑approved articles can confuse retrospective tallies: Richard Nixon’s Watergate crisis produced Judiciary Committee articles and intense momentum, but Nixon resigned in August 1974 before the full House voted; that episode is frequently cited in accounts of presidential impeachment but precedes the fifty‑year window under discussion [4] [1]. Separately, many resolutions filed by individual members — sometimes described in the press as “impeachment efforts” — never advanced to committee votes or floor adoption, and should not be conflated with formal impeachment by the House [7].
5. What authoritative compilations say and the limits of available reporting
Government and institutional references — the House historical archive, the Library of Congress research guides, and federal impeachment primers — consistently identify three presidents in U.S. history as having been impeached by the House (Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021) and note Nixon’s resignation as a near‑impeachment episode [6] [8] [5]. Within the specific fifty‑year span requested, those sources show only Clinton and Trump reached the threshold of articles adopted by the House; comprehensive listings of lesser efforts exist but vary in scope and are not equivalent to adopted articles [7] [1]. If a reader wants a catalog of all introduced but unadopted impeachment resolutions during the period, that is a different research task and exceeds the explicit record of House‑adopted articles cited here [7].