Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is launching a renewed push to wipe President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from the House record — calling the proceedings a “maliciously false” partisan campaign that damaged Trump’s reputation and abused congressional power.
The California Republican introduced H.Res.1211, a resolution that would formally expunge both impeachments approved by the House in 2019 and 2021 “as if such Article had never passed the full House of Representatives.”
“The fact is that the Constitution doesn’t spell out what to do when you’ve wrongfully indicted somebody,” Issa told Fox News Digital. “An impeachment is basically an indictment, and it’s an indictment that you can’t really be acquitted from.”
“If you are impeached by the House, famously where do you go to get your reputation back?” he added. “That’s sort of a problem that we’re dealing with.”
The measure, which has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee, reignites a fierce constitutional and political debate over whether Congress can retroactively erase an impeachment after it has already become part of the historical record.
Issa argued that newly declassified intelligence documents and revelations about the impeachment investigations justify revisiting the issue years later.
The resolution claims Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 — tied to his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — relied on politically biased and unreliable information supplied by an anonymous whistleblower who allegedly lacked firsthand knowledge.
Issa’s resolution also points to recently declassified material highlighted by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who earlier this year said documents revealed what she described as a “coordinated effort” within the intelligence community “to manufacture a conspiracy that was used as the basis to impeach President Trump in 2019.”
Trump became the third president in U.S. history to be impeached in December 2019 after House Democrats accused him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over allegations he pressured Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. The Senate later acquitted Trump in February 2020, with only one Republican — Sen. Mitt Romney — voting to convict on one article.
The president was impeached a second time in January 2021, just days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, on a charge of “incitement of insurrection.” That impeachment made Trump the only president ever impeached twice.
Issa blasted the second impeachment as rushed and fundamentally unfair.
“They impeached him for essentially an insurrection, a true high crime, and it’s false,” Issa said.
The resolution argues House Democrats rammed the second impeachment through Congress in just two days without a full evidentiary process, fact witnesses, or an extended investigation. While lawmakers held a brief hearing with constitutional scholars, Republicans argued Trump was denied basic due process protections.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate in February 2021 after falling short of the two-thirds threshold needed for conviction, though seven Republicans joined Democrats in voting guilty — the largest bipartisan vote to convict a president in impeachment history.
Issa also accused Democrats of violating House norms throughout both proceedings.
A source close to Issa’s office told Fox News Digital that some Democrats have privately acknowledged information that emerged after the impeachments “reflects so poorly on the House” and represents “an example of what’s gone wrong in the Capitol and in Washington.”
The effort already has backing from powerful Republicans, including House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan.
“Democrats weaponized impeachment against President Trump with politically motivated charges,” Jordan told Fox News Digital. “We applaud Chairman Issa for leading the fight to expunge this sham from the record.”
More than 20 House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, including Claudia Tenney, Tim Burchett, Harriet Hageman and Ronny Jackson.
The push follows several failed Republican attempts to erase Trump’s impeachments from congressional records. Similar resolutions introduced in 2022 and 2023 never received hearings, markups or floor votes before dying at the end of the previous Congress.
Issa insists this latest effort is different.
“The previous resolutions were not written as strongly as this one and didn’t have what we have,” he said, referring to what he called newly uncovered evidence of misconduct tied to the impeachment inquiries.
Still, constitutional scholars remain divided over whether Congress can truly “erase” an impeachment. Supporters argue the Constitution gives the House the “sole Power of Impeachment,” meaning lawmakers also control their own records and can vote to expunge prior actions.
Critics counter that Congress cannot undo the historical fact that the House impeached a president, even if lawmakers later condemn or annotate the process as flawed. In practice, many legal experts say the effort would be largely symbolic.
Issa, however, says symbolism matters.
“Our goal is to show that it’s false and it was maliciously false,” he said. “When you’ve been falsely accused, whether it’s days, weeks, months or years later, somebody should be just as interested in printing that retraction on the front page as they were in putting the original charge on the front page.”
