Donald Trump is quietly pressuring Republican leaders in Washington to back a move that would symbolically erase his two impeachments, according to a new report, prompting Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin to argue that the president's behind-the-scenes push betrays 'shame and disgrace' over his conduct around 6 January and Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and close allies are lobbying GOP lawmakers to introduce a resolution that would 'void' both impeachments: the first, in 2019, over his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the second, in 2021, over his role in inciting the mob that stormed the US Capitol. The plan, sourced to unnamed Republican insiders, would not change the historical record or the formal constitutional status of either impeachment, but is designed to send a political message as Trump seeks to reclaim the White House.
Raskin Says Trump Cannot 'Erase' His Impeachments or Jan. 6
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who served as lead impeachment manager in Trump's second trial, went on MSNBC's MS NOW on Sunday to dismantle the idea that Congress can simply scrub impeachments from history because a party now finds them inconvenient.
Raskin said there is 'no constitutional provision for expungement of your prior impeachments', stressing that the House of Representatives voted twice to impeach Trump and that those votes stand, regardless of what a future Republican majority might wish to 'void' in symbolic fashion.
He also offered the president a blunt piece of advice for avoiding such predicaments in future. 'If you don't want to get impeached by the House of Representatives, stop committing impeachable offences,' Raskin said. 'That's the way you do it, you stop committing high crimes and misdemeanours.'
The Maryland congressman, a constitutional law scholar by background, argued that the very notion of expungement shows Trump is deeply unsettled by the stain of being the only US president impeached twice. 'I think it's probably a good sign that he feels sufficient shame, disgrace and embarrassment about having levied an insurrection against his own government, as well as the Ukraine shakedown in the prior impeachment,' he said, while adding that 'there's no procedure for doing that.'
Donald Trump's Push to 'Void' Impeachments Seen as Political Theatre
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump's allies are working up a formal resolution that Republican lawmakers could introduce to 'expunge' his impeachments from the congressional record. The move would carry no legal weight; impeachment is a constitutional act, not a party motion that can be rescinded at will.
Even so, the effort speaks volumes about how Trump wants his legacy rewritten. Rather than directly contesting the factual basis of the charges that he pressured Ukraine's president to investigate a political rival while withholding military aid, and that he encouraged supporters who later stormed the Capitol he is seeking a vote that would retroactively cast the impeachments themselves as partisan overreach.
Raskin appeared unimpressed. He suggested the expungement idea is less a serious constitutional argument than a political loyalty test for Republicans still tethered to Trump's base. The deeper concern, he said, was that all this talk of wiping the slate clean risks minimising the human cost of 6 January.
The Democrat pointed to officers who defended the Capitol and are still dealing with physical and psychological trauma. 'I saw one officer over the weekend who is still going regularly to the doctor for migraines caused by a fractured skull and traumatic brain injuries,' Raskin said. For him, attempts to 'erase Jan. 6' are not an abstraction. They have consequences for people still recovering from that day's violence.
Republican leaders have not publicly confirmed the details of the reported plan, and the Journal's account rests on anonymous sources. Nothing is confirmed yet, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt until a resolution is actually introduced in the House or Senate. But the broad contours fit a wider pattern: Trump has consistently sought not merely to contest political defeats, but to reframe them as illegitimate attacks that must be cancelled out symbolically.
Trump, shown on camera during the national anthem, is booed loudly at MSG pic.twitter.com/NkWE4xsE2Z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026
Constitutional experts are likely to side with Raskin on the narrow question of expungement. The House can pass new resolutions criticising old impeachments, or declaring them unfounded in hindsight, but it cannot retroactively unvote a past impeachment any more than it can pretend a law it once passed was never on the books.
Still, in a Republican Party where loyalty to Trump remains a powerful currency, a purely symbolic gesture may be the point. The president's allies would gain another chance to force colleagues to line up behind him, and Trump could claim a kind of moral acquittal to brandish on the campaign trail, no matter what the Constitution actually says.
