Vice President of the United States the Twenty-fifth Amendment established a procedure for filling such a vacancy: This procedure has been implemented twice since the amendment came into force. The first instance occurred in 1973 following the October 10 resignation of Spiro Agnew, when Gerald Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon and confirmed by Congress. The second occurred 10 months later following Ford's August 9, 1974 accession to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation, when Nelson Rockefeller was nominated by President Ford and confirmed by Congress. Had it not been for this new constitutional mechanism, the vice presidency would have remained vacant after Agnew's resignation and
Vice President of the United States United States is on trial, the Constitution requires that the Chief Justice of the United States must preside. This stipulation was designed to avoid the possible conflict of interest in having the vice president preside over the trial for the removal of the one official standing between him and the presidency. Curiously, the framers made no mention of who would preside in the instance where the vice president is the officer impeached; thus leaving a loophole whereby a vice president, as President of the Senate, could preside at their own impeachment trial. The Twelfth Amendment, like the superseded Article II