House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) says he’d take a “look” at attempting to expunge former President Donald Trump’s double impeachments.
At a news conference Thursday, McCarthy addressed the possibility of a new resolution to erase the impeachments now that Republicans control the House. “I would understand why members would want to bring that forward,” he said.
“I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it.”
McCarthy offered no other details.
Trump was first impeached by the House in 2019 for abuse of power after he attempted to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into launching a bogus investigation of Joe Biden ahead of his expected run for the White House, with Trump holding up important military aid to the country.
Trump was later impeached for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
After that riot, McCarthy declared on the floor of the House that the “president bears responsibility for [the] attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.”
Trump was acquitted in Senate trials after each of the impeachments, but the indictment by the House remains on record.
Republicans in the previous Congress floated resolutions to expunge the impeachments, but they never got anywhere.
“It is outrageous that Speaker McCarthy would consider expunging Donald Trump’s impeachments,” wrote Noah Bookbinder, the president of watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a tweet Thursday. “Trump incited a violent insurrection and tried to overturn an election he lost. Congress should have barred him from office.”
Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis mocked McCarthy’s position, tweeting, “Not sure that’s how it works.”