Trump Pushes to ‘Expunge’ His Impeachments From First Term: Report

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

President Donald Trump is trying to have his two impeachments from his first term “expunged,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The idea would be for Congress to nullify those impeachments – which, constitutionally, is not a thing – in what would be a symbolic rebuke. In 2020, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he made 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. 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 each impeachment, the Senate failed to muster the two-thirds necessary to convict.

“President Trump and his allies have discussed pushing lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first-term impeachments, according to people familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported. “It would have little legal significance, however, because the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment, according to experts.”

In a phone interview with the publication this week, Trump reiterated that he was blameless.

“It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump said of the resolution. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.”

The paper went on to say that such an effort would not be attempted until after the midterm elections in November, where Republicans are expected by many political analysts to lose their narrow majority in the House.

The Journal reported that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is open to the measure.

“I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Johnson told the outlet. “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.”

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