President Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly working to expunge his two impeachments from the congressional record, a move constitutional experts say Congress has no power to make.
The effort would have little legal significance, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
According to the report, Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, called it “an absurd idea.” “Nobody thought that Congress had this power, because Congress doesn’t have this power,” he said.
This contradicts Trump’s position. In a phone call with the Journal, the president said, “It should be done because I did nothing wrong. It was a rigged deal — it was a whole rigged situation.”
The report also said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) confirmed he has discussed the resolution with Trump and his legal allies, including Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow. Sekulow represented Trump in his first impeachment trial.
“I think it makes a lot of sense,” Johnson told the Journal. “They were sham impeachments.”
Two Impeachments, Two Acquittals
Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice. A Democratic-led House approved the first set of impeachment articles in December 2019, charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The Senate acquitted him in February 2020.
The second impeachment came in January 2021, days before Trump left office, when the House charged him with incitement of insurrection over accusations he encouraged supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The Senate again acquitted him, this time in February 2021.
Resolution Delayed
Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) has already introduced a resolution to expunge both impeachments, attracting 23 Republican co-sponsors. The resolution argues that the first impeachment was undermined by witness credibility issues, and the second was procedurally flawed due to a rushed process.
The push to void his impeachments fits into a wider campaign by Trump to clear his record. His lawyers are separately seeking to overturn his criminal conviction for falsifying business records related to hush money payments, while also working to reverse unfavorable civil rulings against him.
