Two House GOP Members Seek to Make History - And Kevin McCarthy Supports It
In an unprecedented action, two Republican members of the House want to formally expunge from the record the House’s two impeachment votes against former President Donald Trump – an action that has the support of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The House voted to impeach Trump in 2019 amid claims he held aid to Ukraine hostage and in 2021 during the final days of his presidency after the Capitol insurrection. In both cases, the process ended with Trump’s acquittal after a Senate trial.
The resolutions to wipe the record clean were offered by Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, according to Reuters. This type of maneuvering to expunge records has never been seen in American history before.
Despite the historic nature of the move, it already has powerful support in the House.
“I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through,” McCarthy said Friday, according to The Hill.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise noted last week after Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California was censured by the House for his attacks on Trump and his role in the 2019 impeachment of the former president that overturning the impeachment had merit.
Greene’s resolution targets Trump’s 2019 impeachment and says Trump was wrongfully impeached, “as demonstrated by the information revealed in an unclassified FD-1023 FBI document.”
The resolution does not specify, but recently, an FD-1023 document has come to light that makes unverified allegations that President Joe Biden, during the time he was vice president in the Obama administration, was linked to a bribery scheme involving a Ukrainian energy company.
Stefanik’s resolution focuses on Trump’s 2021 impeachment, which she calls “an unconstitutional exercise in futility, moot and fantastical political theater.”
The resolution notes that Democrat-led efforts to impeach Trump in the aftermath of the Capitol incursion failed to delineate the “widespread mistrust harbored by American voters in the wake of the 2020 presidential elections.”
On Friday, McCarthy said the 2019 impeachment vote was “not based on true facts” while he opposed the 2021 impeachment vote “on the basis of no due process,” according to Breitbart.
McCarthy was speaking about the FBI informant referred to in Greene’s resolution to illustrate the shallowness of the claims against Trump, noting that the form says “an individual had to pay the Biden family and he had to use shell companies to pass it through. Is that more than a phone call?”
“And what about what we just found from Jason Smith, where now you have DOJ warning Hunter Biden ahead of time. You now have 51 individuals, who when they had a laptop that had been classified certification — that you’re talking to former CIA directors and others— lie to the American public before an election, saying that that was Russia collusion,” he added.
“At the same time you have a number of items that if I raise the bar to an impeachment with the same level that the Democrats did, I think there’d be a lot of times impeachment,” McCarthy said.
In a news release on her website, Stefanik noted that she opposed impeaching Trump.
“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. 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,” she said.
In the release, Greene said Trump’s 2019 impeachment was “a politically motivated sham” and noted what was being ignored while the focus was on Trump.
“Meanwhile, the FBI had credible evidence of Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings, confirming their involvement in a foreign bribery pay-to-play scheme and receipt of over $5 million each. All of this information was revealed to Congress by the FD-1023 form from the FBI’s most credible informant. The form vindicates President Trump and exposes the crimes of the Biden family,” she said.
Greene added: “It’s clear that President Trump’s impeachment was nothing more than a witch hunt that needs to be expunged from our history.”
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