House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has a plan to expunge President Donald Trump’s ‘weak’ impeachment in the lower chamber if Republicans win back control of the lower chamber in the 2020 elections.
According to the , the California Republican, who is in position to take over as Speaker with a GOP majority, said he believes the president’s impeachment process was inherently unfair and was not predicated on fact or legitimate crimes.
“This is the fastest, weakest, most political impeachment in history,” McCarthy told The Post on Wednesday. “I don’t think it should stay on the books.”
Any vote to expunge the president’s impeachment would no doubt occur along party line votes, the Post noted, but it won’t even occur if the Republicans can’t wrest control of the chamber from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats.
The minority leader and other Republicans note that investigating how Democrats, who were led by Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), pursued Trump’s impeachment could give them the factual basis to justify an expungement.
and other Republicans say that investigating how Democrats — led by Pelosi, Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) — pursued their impeachment of Trump could provide the factual basis to underpin an expungement effort.
“I think [if] we take the majority, some of the key priorities for us are infrastructure, lowering prescription drugs and others. But I think when you look at what the Democrats have done, I also think we have to get to the bottom of it,” McCarthy said.
“There’s still an 18th transcript that was never released about the inspector general. It’s interesting to know, in there there was 179 pages, did Adam Schiff know the whistleblower? Did he meet with the whistleblower? I think a lot of questions are raised about whether that individual, Adam Schiff, was a fact witness,” McCarthy said.
In order to regain the majority, Republicans would have to flip 18 seats back to their control. And with President Trump on the ballot in November, the party expects a huge voter turnout and lots of enthusiasm.
“We feel very, very confident that come November [voters] are going to make the right decision and Speaker Pelosi’s term as speaker of the House will not go beyond this year,” said House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Wednesday.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told The Post “there is precedent for doing it in a later Congress,” citing an 1837 precedent when Congress then voted to expunge a censure of President Andrew Jackson.
“The president is there and I think ultimately with the things that are going to be coming out in the months ahead, it will be all the more appropriate. More and more people will see that,” Gohmert said, adding he believes Republicans would vote to expunge. “So then I think by next year it will be an appropriate thing to file and do.”