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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Monday he plans to continue efforts to have President Donald Trump’s two impeachments formally expunged, arguing lawmakers acted without access to information that later came to light.
Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television program, Issa said Congress should revisit the impeachment votes because he believes key evidence was inaccurate or withheld.
“I intend on doing just that, making sure that we recognize and validate that false information and withheld information caused a Congress to think they could vote to impeach him,” Issa said. “Knowing what we know now, even many of the Democrats would have had a much harder time facing the voters, knowing that they had willfully used false information.”
President Trump has also expressed support for expunging both impeachments from the congressional record. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published June 11, he said the action “should be done because I did nothing wrong.”
The Democratic-controlled House impeached President Trump in December 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over allegations that he withheld military aid to Ukraine while pressuring the country to investigate then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The House impeached President Trump a second time in January 2021 on a charge of incitement of insurrection following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In both cases, the Senate acquitted him after the articles of impeachment failed to receive the two-thirds majority required for conviction.
Issa, who represents portions of San Diego and Riverside counties, said he is working alongside other Republican leaders who support removing the impeachments from the historical record.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also endorsed the effort in comments to The Wall Street Journal.
“I think it makes a lot of sense. The more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Johnson told the newspaper. “We were saying it at the time, now we know. And they make a very compelling case that it should be expunged from the record, because it was a hyperpartisan attack job.”
