House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is backing an effort in the House of Representatives to expunge the two impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump.
McCarthy endorsed the expungement effort in comments to the members of the media outside his office on Friday.
The first Democrat-led impeachment effort against Trump alleged he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election and then obstructed investigations into the effort. The second Democrat-led impeachment effort alleged Trump incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when demonstrators entered the building and disrupted a joint Congressional session to certify the 2020 election results; results which Trump has disputed.
While the Democrat-controlled House impeached Trump in both cases, the efforts failed to garner the support of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate, as is required to convict an officeholder of an impeachment charge.
The First Impeachment
The first Democrat-led impeachment effort against Trump alleged he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election by way of a July 25, 2019, phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to the impeachment proceedings, Trump had allegedly conditioned aid to Ukraine on a commitment from Zelenskyy to launch a corruption investigation into Joe Biden.During his July 2019 call with Zelenskyy, Trump appeared to reference allegations that in 2016 then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas firm on whose board his son Hunter Biden served.
The Second Impeachment
Stefanik’s resolution focuses on Trump’s second impeachment, a case initiated on Jan. 13, 2021, and concluded a month later on Feb. 13, 2021.The impeachment article against Trump alleged he “reiterated false claims that ‘we won this election, and we won it by a landslide,’” and “He also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’”
What Expungement Does
Expunging Trump’s impeachments may be more of a symbolic act than one with any practical impact. The expungement process typically applies to criminal defendants seeking to have an arrest or conviction removed from their record in the eyes of the law.Impeachment differs somewhat from a criminal proceeding.
“It’s not like a constitutional DUI. Once you are impeached, you are impeached,” Georgetown University Law Professor Jonathan Turley said.
On the other hand, Turley said expungement of the impeachments could serve as a symbolic declaration that those impeachments had been in error.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) criticized the idea in a comment to The Hill.
“It’s a continuation of Republicans acting as Donald Trump’s taxpayer-funded lawyers,” Goldman said. “It’s telling who’s introducing them. And it’s essentially whoever’s trying to curry the most favor with Trump.”
Beyond the impeachments, Trump is also facing criminal charges on allegations he mishandled classified national defense information and obstructed government efforts to retrieve that information.