House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he will support the idea of expunging both impeachments from former President Donald Trump's record, the Daily Caller reported. The California Republican said this Friday following proposals advanced by congressional Republicans.
This week, GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Elise Stefanik of New York took steps to clear Trump's record. While McCarthy believes the matter should go back to the committee, he supported the premise of their arguments.
Trump's 2019 impeachment was over a call to the president of Ukraine urging him to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden, the Associated Press reported. Democrats charged that he was trying to smear a political opponent and was withholding aid to the country to get what he wanted.
The second impeachment in 2021 followed the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that Democrats blamed the former president for inciting. Trump was just days from leaving office when the House of Representatives approved it.
Greene's proposal applied to the 2019 impeachment, while Stefanik's was for the 2021 action. "The American people know Democrats weaponized the power of impeachment against President Donald Trump to advance their own extreme political agenda,” Stefanik said Thursday in a statement, the New York Post reported.
"From the beginning of this sham process, I stood up against Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff’s blatant attempt to shred the Constitution as House Democrats ignored the Constitution and failed to follow the legislative process," Stefanik went on. "President Donald Trump was rightfully acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats’ sham smear against not only President Trump’s name, but against millions of patriots across the country.”
Both impeachment attempts died in the GOP-controlled Senate, where he was acquitted. Now McCarthy stands with other Republicans who believe these were politically motivated and had no merit in the first place.
"I think it is appropriate," McCarthy said. "Just as I thought before — that you should expunge it, because it never should have gone through," he added.
McCarthy was particularly adamant that the 2021 impeachment needed to be removed from Trump's record. "The second impeachment had no due process."
At the same time, McCarthy is hesitant to support the impeachment of President Joe Biden that was pushed by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Fox News reported. On Tuesday, she introduced a privileged resolution to impeach Biden over his failures to control illegal immigration.
The privileged resolution allows a proposal to circumvent the committee and go right to a vote on the House floor. However, Republicans joined a 219-208 vote to send the proposal back to the committee on Thursday anyway.
McCarthy called Boebert's way of going about the impeachment "flippant." House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer lamented that she should have "gone about it a different way."
Trump was targeted by the left from the time he announced his run for the presidency. Democrats ramped up efforts to smear his good name and ensure he could never hold office again with the impeachments.
The former president may finally get justice if the GOP is successful in restoring his reputation. Whether or not that helps Trump in his 2024 presidential bid, at least there's some sense that Democrats will not get away with their tricks.
