HOUSE
GOP, McCarthy on collision course over expunging
Trump’s impeachments
BY MIKE
LILLIS AND MYCHAEL SCHNELL - 07/24/23 5:30 AM ET
House
Republicans increasingly find themselves on a collision course over efforts to
expunge the impeachments of former President Trump, a battle that pits
hard-line conservatives — who are pressing for a vote — against moderates
already warning GOP leaders they’ll reject it.
The
promised opposition from centrist Republicans all but ensures the resolutions
would fail if they hit the floor. And it puts Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
in a no-win situation.
If he
doesn’t stage the vote, he risks the ire of Trump and his allies. If he does,
the measures would be shot down, validating Trump’s impeachments just as his
legal troubles are piling up.
The issue
is just the latest in a long string of debates challenging McCarthy’s ability
to keep his conference united while Trump — the GOP’s presidential front-runner
who’s also facing two criminal indictments — hovers in the background.
The
expungement concept is hardly new. A group of House Republicans — including
Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) — introduced legislation last month
designed to erase Trump’s impeachments from the historical record.
But the
debate reached new heights last week when Politico reported that McCarthy —
after suggesting publicly that Trump is not the strongest contender for the GOP
presidential nomination — raced to make amends, in part by promising to vote on
expungement before the end of September.
McCarthy
has denied he ever made such a promise. But the denial only magnified the issue
in the public eye — and amplified the conservative calls for the Speaker to
bring the measure for a vote.
“It should
definitely come to the floor and be expunged,” said Rep. Byron Donalds
(R-Fla.), a member of the Freedom Caucus and vocal Trump ally.
“I’m hoping
to see it get done before August recess,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.),
a lead sponsor of one of the resolutions, told reporters, later adding that
“these are impeachments that should’ve never happened, and so we would like to
expunge them.”
The
expungement push is anathema to many moderate Republicans, particularly those
facing tough reelections in competitive districts, who are treading carefully
not to link themselves too closely with Trump.
Some of
those lawmakers are already vowing to vote against the measure if it hits the
floor — all but guaranteeing its failure given the Republicans’ narrow House
majority — and some of them are proactively reaching out to GOP leaders to warn
them against staging such a vote.
“I have
every expectation I’ll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation
that I will work to bring others with me,” said one moderate Republican who
requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, noting “I think my views
represent a fair number of principled conservatives.”
“We can’t
change history. I mean, that impeachment vote happened. And I just don’t think
we should be engaged in the kind of cancel culture that tries to whitewash
history.”
The
lawmaker added: “I’ve communicated that with leadership.”
A
majority-Democrat House impeached Trump twice during his four-year reign in the
White House.
The first
instance, in late 2019, stemmed from Trump’s threat to withhold U.S. military
aid to Ukraine unless that country’s leaders launched a corruption
investigation into Trump’s chief political rival, Joe Biden. The second, in
early 2021, targeted Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,
which was conducted by Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat.
The votes
made Trump just the third U.S. president to be impeached and the first to have
it happen twice. His Republican allies have long accused Democrats of abusing
their authority for the sole purpose of damaging a political foe.
Expunging
an impeachment has never been attempted. And opponents of the move in both
parties are quick to point out that it has no practical significance because
the impeachments happened and can’t be reversed.
“There’s no
procedure for expunging an impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a
former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment. “It’s
completely meaningless.”
Others
pointed out that Trump has already been exonerated by the Senate, which failed
to convict him after both impeachments, making any new process pointless.
“They’re
silly,” centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message. “When do we
expunge a not guilty verdict?”
The
pushback hasn’t discouraged Trump’s allies from pressing ahead for expungement,
if only as a symbolic show of solidarity with the embattled former president.
McCarthy,
who relied on Trump’s backing to win the Speaker’s gavel this year, threw his
support behind expungement in late June, telling reporters the first punishment
“was not based on true facts,” and the second was “on the basis of no due process.”
“I think it
is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it
never should have gone through,” he said.
After
fading from prominence for about a month, the conversation over expungement
cropped back up following Politico’s report, which came days after the former
president said he received a “target letter” from the Justice Department
informing him he is the subject of their investigation into his efforts to
remain in power following the 2020 election — which includes the Jan. 6 Capitol
riot.
The receipt
of a target letter is often a sign that charges will soon be filed, which would
mark Trump’s third indictment in recent months — and his second on the federal
level. That prospect has only amped up Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol
Hill and could fuel efforts to expunge the two rebukes he received while in
office.
“Every time
you pile something on Trump, his numbers go up,” said Rep. Tim Burchett
(R-Tenn.). “I’m surprised the Democrats aren’t just wanting to ignore him.”
The
discourse over expungement, however, is dividing House Republicans at a
precarious moment for McCarthy as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to
fund the government or risk a shutdown.
The
appropriations process is already causing controversy within the House GOP
conference, as hard-line conservatives — many of them close Trump allies — push
leadership to enact aggressive cuts, which includes setting spending at levels
lower than the agreement McCarthy struck with President Biden in May.
Trump has
thus far stayed out of that debate, as he’d done earlier in the year during the
debt-ceiling battle. But he remains a wildcard in the weeks leading up to the
shutdown deadline, especially if his legal problems worsen and the pressure on
his congressional allies to provide some form of exoneration — even if symbolic
— grows more pronounced.
“The
Republicans face a serious political problem,” Raskin said, “because they have
wrapped their party around the fortunes and the ambitions of Donald Trump.”
Emily Brooks contributed.
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