- President Trump and his allies have discussed pushing House lawmakers to pass a resolution declaring his two impeachments “expunged,” according to people familiar with the matter.
- Legal experts said the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment, and the resolution would have no legal effect.
- House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said he has discussed the resolution with Trump and called the impeachments “sham impeachments.”
- Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) introduced a resolution in April that would void both impeachments; it has 23 Republican co-sponsors.
- The measure likely will not be considered until after the November midterm elections, and even then would face difficulty passing, according to several House Republicans.
- The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons, stood at 8.1% in May, as voters’ economic concerns remain a central campaign issue.
WASHINGTON — President Trump and his allies are pushing House lawmakers to pass a resolution that would symbolically void his two first-term impeachments, a move legal experts said has no constitutional basis but would allow Trump to claim a symbolic victory as part of his broader effort to burnish his legacy, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal this week that the resolution should be pursued because “I did nothing wrong. It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.” But he played down his own role in the effort, saying, “If they want to do it, I’m honored by it.”
The resolution would have no legal significance because the Constitution provides no procedure for undoing an impeachment, according to constitutional law experts. “It’s an absurd idea,” said Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s in the history books. Historically, nobody thought that Congress had this power, because Congress doesn’t have this power.” He described the impeachment trials as closed and final events.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said he has discussed the resolution with Trump and with conservative lawyers including Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Jay Sekulow, who represented Trump during the first impeachment trial. “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 Journal. He said the effort was “not an order of first priority” but added that it was on his list. “It is a priority and something that Congress should make right.”
Dershowitz expressed uncertainty about whether a presidential impeachment can be undone. “Nobody knows the answer,” he told the Journal.
The Democratic-led House approved articles of impeachment in December 2019 for allegations related to Trump’s efforts to press Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Shortly before Trump left office in January 2021, the House passed an article of impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” over accusations he pushed supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him in both trials.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) introduced a measure in April seeking to “expunge” both impeachments. The resolution states that each is “expunged, as if such Articles had never passed the full House of Representatives.” It has attracted 23 co-sponsors, all Republicans. Issa’s resolution cites recently declassified material and reporting by conservative journalist John Solomon as grounds for voiding the first impeachment and argues the second was rushed.
The idea of expunging Trump’s impeachments has circulated in Washington for years. Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) pushed for a similar measure in 2023, but those efforts stalled. The effort gained new momentum in April after the Trump administration declassified material about the investigation into Trump’s first impeachment that his supporters believe undercut key witnesses.
Despite pressure from advisers to stay focused on the economy, Trump has repeatedly turned his attention to other legacy projects, including plans for a ballroom at the White House and a 250-foot triumphal arch. The broader U-6 measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons, stood at 8.1% in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The measure likely will not be considered until after the November midterm elections, the people familiar with the matter said. Even then, several House Republican lawmakers said it would be difficult to garner the votes needed to pass. House Republicans face the prospect of losing their majority and have been trying to shift focus to the economy and high costs, the issues voters name as most important.
“Maybe they’ve given up on holding the majority?” said retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.), a centrist Republican. “It’s silly. What happened is history.”