(PatriotWise.com) — In an unprecedented legislative maneuver, two Republican lawmakers last week introduced a pair of resolutions aimed at having former President Donald Trump’s two impeachments expunged, Reuters reported.
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced resolutions to expunge Trump’s impeachments from the House record “as if such articles had never been passed.”
The Democrat-controlled House impeached Trump twice, first in December 2019 over the phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky about Joe Biden’s possible corruption in Ukraine, and again in January 2021 over his alleged incitement of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Trump was later acquitted by the Senate in both impeachments.
Donald Trump was only the third president to be impeached by the House and the first president in history to be impeached twice.
However, the push to expunge his impeachments is unprecedented.
According to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, there is nothing in the Constitution that supports expunging impeachments from the record.
Turley told Reuters that impeachment is not the constitutional equivalent of a DUI. He explained that once a president is impeached, he is impeached.
Greene’s resolution would expunge the first impeachment from the record, arguing that Trump was “wrongfully accused of misconduct.”
Stafanik’s resolution calls for the January 2021 impeachment to be expunged because the impeachment process failed to establish that Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Last Friday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he backs the effort, telling reporters that the first impeachment was not “based on true facts” and the second lacked due process, according to The Hill.
However, McCarthy clarified that both resolutions must go through the committee process before they can go to the full House for a vote.
Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman, who was lead majority counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, argued that the legality of the resolutions is “highly questionable.” He told Reuters that Republicans are only pursuing the resolutions to placate Donald Trump.
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