Historic Rewrite Looms — What Gets Deleted?

A man in a suit waving to a crowd at a public event

Trump’s push to erase his “sham” impeachments has become a new test of whether Congress will finally admit how weaponized those fights really were.

Story Snapshot

Trump and key House allies are driving a plan to expunge both first-term impeachments from the House record.
Supporters say the original impeachments never met the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard and were driven by partisan hatred.
Legal experts on the left admit expungement would be mostly symbolic, but it would hand Trump a powerful moral victory.
The fight shows how impeachment has become a political weapon instead of the rare constitutional tool the founders intended.

Trump Allies Move to Wipe “Sham” Impeachments off the Books

House Republican leaders began the expungement effort years ago, and under Trump’s second-term leadership it is now back at center stage.^[1] Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene first introduced resolutions in 2023 to expunge the December 2019 and January 2021 impeachments, saying they were “unconstitutional” and should be treated as if they had never passed the House of Representatives.^[1] Their message was simple and direct: the charges were political, not criminal, and the House record should reflect that.

Stefanik’s resolution argued that the facts used against Trump did not prove “high crimes and misdemeanors” and did not show that he engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.^[1] The resolution pointed to problems in how the second impeachment rushed through the House, concerns about how the 2020 election was handled, and a process that changed rules on the fly.^[1] Greene’s companion resolution said Trump was “wrongfully accused” in the first impeachment and noted later information, including an unclassified Federal Bureau of Investigation form, that undercut the original abuse-of-power claims.^[1]

What “Expungement” Really Means in This Constitutional Fight

Trump has told supporters that expungement “should be done” because he “did nothing wrong,” calling the impeachment drives “rigged” from day one.^[2] His team and friendly lawmakers are now working on updated resolutions, including one led by Congressman Darrell Issa, to formally expunge both impeachments from the House record.^[2]^[3] For Trump and many conservatives, this is about clearing his name in the official record and correcting what they see as a stain created by weaponized government.^[2]^[3]

Legal experts, including some who strongly opposed Trump, admit that any expungement vote would be mostly symbolic and would not erase the past Senate trials.^[2] The Constitution lays out how to impeach and try a president, but it does not explain how to “undo” an impeachment after the fact.^[2] Critics on the left say that means expungement has no legal force, but that argument also shows why many conservatives view impeachment itself as now more political theater than constitutional safeguard. In other words, if the damage is political, then a political fix to the record matters.

Why This Battle Matters for Future Presidents and for Voters

Nonpartisan analysts note there is no known precedent for the House voting to expunge a completed impeachment, and House rules and the Constitution are silent on the idea.^[2] That vacuum is exactly why this fight matters so much. The use of impeachment against Trump twice in one term, followed by criminal cases and constant media attacks, convinced many voters that the permanent political class will do anything to block an outsider president.^[2] Expungement becomes a way to push back against that pattern, even if it does not rewrite every history book.

Republicans prioritize effort to ‘expunge’ Trump’s impeachments from the record

For six years, Trump has pushed Republicans to unimpeach him and wipe the slate clean. Now, the House speaker considers this twisted goal a “priority.” https://t.co/AlWlyAbUH5

— EThompson (@EThompsonWV) June 14, 2026

Civil-liberties groups that dislike Trump still admit that impeachment left him with no ongoing legal penalty and that expungement would serve mainly to reshape how that period is remembered. That admission undercuts claims that Trump was some ongoing danger who had to be stopped at all costs. For conservatives, the bigger issue is the warning to every future president who challenges the establishment. If partisan impeachments stand unchallenged, nothing stops Congress from using them again as a routine political weapon instead of a last-resort constitutional tool.