Trump seeks – President Donald Trump is pressing lawmakers to “expunge” his two first-term impeachments in a symbolic push to nullify Congress’s actions, an effort he says should happen because “I did nothing wrong.” Experts say the Constitution provides no procedure to und
President Donald Trump is looking to wipe two impeachment votes from his first term from the record—at least in political terms—even as constitutional experts say Congress has no real way to reverse them.
The effort. discussed by Trump and his allies. would be to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first-term impeachments. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The paper said the idea would carry little legal significance because, constitutionally, there is no procedure for undoing an impeachment.
The first impeachment dates to 2020, when a Democratic-controlled House impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The House action followed Trump’s decision to make the distribution of aid to Ukraine contingent on the country opening an investigation into potential wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his family. At the time. Biden was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. and his son Hunter Biden had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma.
Trump was impeached again in 2021 after he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and inspired the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. In both impeachments, the Senate failed to reach the two-thirds threshold needed to convict.
In a phone interview with the publication this week, Trump again rejected any wrongdoing. “It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump said of the resolution. He called it “a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”
The Journal also reported that the push would not be attempted until after the midterm elections in November. when Republicans are expected by many political analysts to lose their narrow majority in the House. That timing puts the resolution—if it happens—squarely in the middle of a high-stakes fight over what control of Congress will look like after voters head to the polls.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has signaled at least some openness to the concept. The outlet reported that Johnson told it. “I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out. the more we know they really were sham impeachments.” Johnson added. “We were saying it at the time. now we know. And they make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record. because it was a hyperpartisan attack job.”.
The clash at the heart of the proposal isn’t really about whether the impeachments happened. They did—passed by the House, then rejected by the Senate when it couldn’t reach a two-thirds vote. The fight is over what Congress can do next: whether it can offer a political rebuke through a resolution. even if the Constitution won’t let it erase the underlying action.
Donald Trump impeachment expunge House of Representatives Senate Mike Johnson Joe Biden Hunter Biden Ukraine aid Jan. 6 Capitol riot midterm elections