Trump Renews Push to Wipe Impeachments From Books

Man in suit and red tie speaking outside.

President Trump is pushing Congress to erase both of his first-term impeachments from the official record — a move with no historical precedent and no clear path in the Constitution.

Story Snapshot

Trump and his allies are pushing to expunge both first-term impeachments from the House record, saying the proceedings were unconstitutional and he did nothing wrong.
House Republicans, including California’s Darrell Issa, are advancing a resolution to officially remove the impeachments from the congressional record.
No precedent exists for the House voting to expunge an impeachment — the Constitution does not mention it, and House rules do not provide for it.
Even if passed, expungement would not undo the Senate trials or erase the historical record of the proceedings.

Trump Renews Push to Wipe Impeachments From the Books

In April 2026, President Trump and his congressional allies renewed efforts to have his two first-term impeachments declared expunged from the House record. Trump has been vocal about his view that both impeachments were politically motivated attacks. He argues he did nothing wrong and that the proceedings should be treated as if they never happened. House Republicans are now actively exploring how to make that a reality.

California Representative Darrell Issa is leading a House resolution to officially expunge the impeachments from the congressional record. The push echoes earlier efforts from 2023, when Representatives Elise Stefanik and Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced similar resolutions. Those resolutions stated the impeachments should be removed “as if such Articles of Impeachment had never passed the full House of Representatives.” ^[1] Speaker Mike Johnson has also signaled support for the effort.

What Expungement Would — and Would Not — Do

Expungement, as described in the resolutions, is a record-keeping action. It would change the official House journal entry for each impeachment vote. It would not reverse the Senate trials that followed. Both trials ended in acquittal, so Trump faced no legal punishment. Critics of the move, including the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, point out that expungement would serve no legal purpose since the impeachments caused no legal harm. ^[4]

There is also no established process for doing this. The House rules do not mention impeachment expungement. The Constitution says nothing about it either. ^[2] That means Congress would essentially be creating a new procedure from scratch. Whether such a move would hold up to legal or historical scrutiny is an open question. Opponents say it is purely symbolic and sets a dangerous precedent for rewriting legislative history.

The Constitutional and Political Stakes

Trump’s first impeachment came in December 2019 over a phone call with Ukraine’s president. His second came in January 2021 following the Capitol riot. In both Senate trials, his legal team mounted strong defenses. During the second trial, his attorneys argued the First Amendment protected his speech. ^[5] The Senate acquitted him both times, which his supporters say proves the impeachments were never legitimate to begin with.

From a conservative standpoint, the frustration behind this push is understandable. Many Trump supporters believe both impeachments were partisan weapons used by Democrats to damage a president they could not beat at the ballot box. Trump won re-election in 2024 despite — or perhaps because of — those proceedings. Still, using a novel, untested process to alter the official congressional record raises real questions about institutional norms. Supporters say it corrects a wrong. Critics say it rewrites history. Either way, the debate puts the legitimacy of the impeachment process itself back in the spotlight — which may be exactly the point. ^[2]^[3]