Republicans prioritize effort to ‘expunge’ Trump’s impeachments from the record – MS NOW
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For six years, Trump has pushed Republicans to unimpeach him and wipe the slate clean. Now, the House speaker considers this twisted goal a “priority.”
There are roughly seven months remaining in the current Congress, and the Republican majorities in the House and Senate still have an opportunity to try to govern and pass worthwhile legislation that the American public might like.
As is too often the case, GOP leaders’ focus apparently lies elsewhere. The Wall Street Journal reported:
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 resolution would allow Trump to claim a symbolic victory on a matter that has dogged him since his first term, part of a broader effort to burnish his presidential legacy. It would have little legal significance, however, because the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment, according to experts.
This is not simply a matter of backroom chatter and whispers from Capitol Hill hallways. Trump explicitly told the Journal, in reference to the efforts to “expunge” the record, “It should be done because I did nothing wrong.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly told the newspaper that he believes the effort “makes a lot of sense.” The Louisiana Republican, who called the president’s impeachments a “sham” and “a hyperpartisan attack job,” added, “It is a priority and something that Congress should make right.”
Before we dig in on what might actually happen with this effort, it’s important to understand how we arrived at this point.
On Feb. 5, 2020, Trump’s first impeachment trial concluded in the Senate. On Feb. 7, 2020, the president first broached the subject of trying to “expunge” the record, calling the effort to hold him accountable a “hoax.”
His message resonated with some of his allies. Indeed, then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin — years before the Oklahoma Republican moved up to the Senate, and more recently the White House Cabinet — introduced a resolution that would have declared Trump’s first impeachment “expunged.” Soon after, Mullin also took aim at Trump’s second impeachment, and that effort gained the support of, among others, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who made some amazingly misguided arguments in support of the idea.
The effort was largely ignored by the Democratic majority in the House, but as 2023 got underway, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he was willing to take a look at the idea, adding, “I would understand why members would want to bring that forward.”
Several GOP members endorsed the move and unveiled legislation soon after. To the president’s chagrin, the last Congress nevertheless failed to take action on this.
History buffs may recall that a related effort happened nearly two centuries ago. Lawmakers censured President Andrew Jackson in 1834, only to have his allies “expunge” the censure from the record in 1837 after control of the Senate switched party hands.
The point at the time was for partisans to say that the congressional action happened, but for the sake of the historical record, it didn’t really count. Trump and his acolytes appear to have similar intentions now.
Indeed, as recently as two months ago, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California introduced a measure to undo both of the president’s impeachments, which coincided with assorted items Trump posted on his social media platform endorsing the broader effort. The same week, as part of an effort that appeared quite coordinated, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard used her office to also take aim at the legitimacy of Trump’s first impeachment.
Just so we’re all clear, this is entirely about Trump’s ego and hurt feelings. There is no mechanism in place that allows for a president to be unimpeached. But Trump sees this as a stain on his record, and he’s eager to have sycophantic GOP members do his bidding, rewrite the recent past, symbolically wipe the slate clean and make him feel better about himself.
Whether such a campaign could generate majority support, however, remains to be seen. Watch this space.
Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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