US Governance — 2026-05-11

House Republicans Move to Erase Trump Impeachments from Congressional Record

Rep. Darrell Issa introduced H.Res.1211 on April 23, referred to the House Judiciary Committee, calling for both Trump's impeachments to be formally expunged from the congressional record. The resolution argues the 2019 impeachment relied on politically biased, secondhand evidence, citing newly declassified materials that DNI Tulsi Gabbard says reveal a "coordinated effort" to manufacture the basis for that inquiry. For the 2021 impeachment, the resolution contends the House moved from introduction to passage in two days without fact witnesses or a full evidentiary process. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan publicly endorsed the resolution, which carries more than 20 Republican co-sponsors; prior expungement resolutions in 2022 and 2023 died without committee hearings.

Analysis
Jordan's on-record endorsement of H.Res.1211, corroborated across Fox News, Just The News, and the resolution text itself, removes the committee bottleneck that killed both prior expungement resolutions. House passage is likely by end of July 2026, though the thin majority and absent markup date hold confidence to moderate. Constitutional scholars remain split on whether the House can retroactively nullify a completed impeachment or only annotate its records, and DNI Gabbard's declassification narrative underpinning the resolution is contested assertion, not adjudicated finding. The resolution may primarily serve as a messaging vehicle: co-sponsors accrue political contrast and donor appeal regardless of floor outcome, a dynamic the 2022–2023 dead resolutions established without apparent cost to their sponsors.

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