House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday that he would explore pursuing the erasure of impeachment from the record of the former president, who previously claimed that Donald Trump “bears culpability” for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Before their party took over the House, Republican House members had already proposed resolutions advocating for expungement, according to the Washington Post.
At a press conference, the new speaker—whom Trump backed in his bid for the position—said that the party currently has other concerns.
But I see why people would want to do it, he continued, “and we’d look at it.” McCarthy did not specify if he would consider dropping either one of the two impeachments—the one for pressuring the president of Ukraine and the one for the violence on the Capitol—or both.
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The impeachments still exist in history even though the Senate refused to find Trump guilty in both trials.
After the attack, McCarthy declared on the House floor that Trump “should have instantly denounced the mob,” but he then changed his tune and visited Trump the next month, ostensibly to heal relations. According to the Post, a similar resolution was presented last year with support from Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of the House leadership.
At the time, she declared, “President Donald Trump was correctly acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats’ bogus smear against not just President Trump’s reputation, but against millions of patriots around the country.” The resolution was not taken up by the then-Democrat-controlled House, but one similar to it might come up for a vote under the incoming leadership.
