<P> The Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege in 1999 noted the previous recommendations to formally abandon the power impeachment, and stated that "The circumstances in which impeachment has taken place are now so remote from the present that the procedure may be considered obsolete". Notwithstanding, on August 25, 2004, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price announced his intention to move for the impeachment of Tony Blair for his role in involving Britain in the 2003 invasion of Iraq . He asked the Leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain whether he would confirm that the power to impeach was still available, reminding Hain that as President of the Young Liberals he had supported the attempted impeachment of Murray . Hain responded by quoting the 1999 Joint Committee's report, and the advice of the Clerk of the House of Commons that impeachment "effectively died with the advent of full responsible Parliamentary government". </P> <P> The election court has some of the powers associated with impeachment cases in other countries, and can remove elected officials from office in the case of electoral fraud . Lutfur Rahman was the directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, in London until he was removed from office for breaching electoral rules . </P> <P> Similar to the British system, Article One of the United States Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power of impeachment and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments of officers of the U.S. national government . (Various state constitutions include similar measures, allowing the state legislature to impeach the governor or other officials of the state government .) In contrast to the British system, in the United States impeachment is only the first of two stages, and conviction during the second stage requires a two - thirds majority vote . Impeachment does not necessarily result in removal from office; it is only a legal statement of charges, parallel to an indictment in criminal law . An official who is impeached faces a second legislative vote (whether by the same body or another), which determines conviction, or failure to convict, on the charges embodied by the impeachment . Most constitutions require a supermajority to convict . Although the subject of the charge is criminal action, it does not constitute a criminal trial; the only question under consideration is the removal of the individual from office, and the possibility of a subsequent vote preventing the removed official from ever again holding political office in the jurisdiction where he or she was removed . Impeachment with respect to political office should not be confused with witness impeachment . </P> <P> The Constitution defines impeachment at the federal level and limits impeachment to "The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States" who may be impeached and removed only for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors". Several commentators have suggested that Congress alone may decide for itself what constitutes a "high crime or misdemeanor", especially since Nixon v. United States stated that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to determine whether the Senate properly "tried" a defendant . In 1970, then - House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford defined the criterion as he saw it: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history ." </P>

Which of the following presides over the impeachment involving the president of the united states