Vulnerable Republicans caught in bind over push to expunge Trump impeachments

The push to expunge former President Trump’s two impeachments is putting vulnerable House Republicans in a tough political spot heading into next year’s election.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is facing growing pressure from the party’s right flank to bring the resolutions to the floor, underscoring the tight grip Trump has on the party as he seeks the GOP nomination for president.

But the moves would also put moderate Republicans at risk, as many of them are running in districts where Trump is highly unpopular. In a sign of just how politically toxic the issue is, some of these Republicans have already started pushing back against the efforts to expunge the impeachments.

“They’re silly,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told The Hill last week. “When do we expunge a not guilty verdict?”

Bacon, who represents a swing district in Nebraska that voted for Biden in 2020, is one of several GOP members representing battleground districts who have voiced frustration over the efforts.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told reporters that he had questions about the purpose of the expungements given the not guilty verdicts, asking, “What is there to expunge?” Lawler’s district comfortably voted for Biden over Trump in 2020.

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told Politico that he would “probably not” vote for a measure expunging the impeachments. His district narrowly voted for Biden in 2020 but has leaned more in favor of Democratic candidates overall in recent years.

“This is not anything vulnerable Republicans want to talk about on the campaign trail,” said Doug Heye, a national Republican strategist. “They want to focus on all of those issues that have [President] Biden’s popularity so low and not be pulled into some Trump loyalty blood oath.”

McCarthy indicated early in his Speakership that he would consider votes on expunging Trump’s impeachments, but he officially declared his support for the efforts last month.

That came just a day after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) introduced resolutions to expunge the impeachments. Greene’s resolution would annul the first impeachment from December 2019, while Stefanik’s would do the same for the second one from January 2021.

The pressure on McCarthy to move forward with the votes has only intensified recently after comments he made questioning whether Trump was the “strongest” Republican to face President Biden in the 2024 election.

Though he later clarified that he believed Trump is “Biden’s strongest opponent,” Politico reported that he promised the former president to hold the expungement votes ahead of the August recess in an effort to placate him. McCarthy has denied making any promise.

Now, the Speaker finds himself in a precarious position, squeezed between the hard-line members who support Trump and the more moderate members who strategists say don’t want to touch the issue.

Trump was impeached first over a threat that he made to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelensky launched an investigation into Biden. He was impeached the second time just over a year later for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted by the Senate in both cases.

GOP strategists said the issue is becoming something of a third rail for House GOP members in moderate or Democratic-leaning districts.

Heye, the Republican strategist and former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said a vote on expungement would only harm these vulnerable members in their reelection bids regardless of whether they ultimately vote for or against it.

“It’s a no-win situation for at-risk Republicans, which is why they don’t want to even have the vote over something that may not even be constitutional,” Heye said.

But he said he does not expect the vote on expungement will happen because of the divisiveness within the conference and its questionable constitutionality. 

The Constitution states that the House has the “sole power” of impeachment, and officers of the United States can be removed from office upon conviction in an impeachment trial, but it makes no mention of expunging an impeachment or removing it from the historical record.

Rina Shah, a Republican consultant who has identified herself as the first “Never Trump” delegate in 2016, said those in “MAGA world” who most solidly stand by Trump still have significant influence on McCarthy and in the House Republican Conference because of the small donations that their voters are willing to send when they are passionate about a certain issue, like defending Trump.

She said McCarthy is more focused on satisfying the hard-liners and their voters than Trump himself.

“They are the people more likely to send $5 every time they’re fired up about something. So Speaker McCarthy, again, trying to walk and chew gum here doesn’t have to do this but is doing it so that he can look more like a leader,” Shah said.

She said the issue facing McCarthy is that he needs the votes of the moderate members for Republicans to keep their majority. She said this situation is only one point of an ongoing balancing act for McCarthy between the moderates and hard-liners.

“That is always the conundrum he finds himself in, is how to do this in a way where he’s making members in tough districts, he’s making them happy while at the same time really sticking his neck out to lead,” Shah said.

Tom Doherty, a New York Republican strategist, said the expungement effort is intended to “throw red meat to the base,” but is not focused on protecting moderate New York Republicans like Lawler. 

“In one way, you’ve stood up to the Washington Republican establishment, which is always more conservative than New York Republicans, but on the other hand, you wind up ticking off your voters,” he said.

Despite a disappointing performance for Republicans nationally during the November midterm elections, GOP victories in House districts in states like New York and California were key to the party winning control of the House. These districts will also be among the top targets for Democrats seeking to regain the majority in the body.

Meanwhile, Democrats warned that these more hesitant Republicans could face “accountability” over their refusal to directly speak out to denounce the effort even if they ultimately vote against the resolutions.

Democratic consultant Antjuan Seawright said moderate Republicans are “hoping and praying” that the resolutions do not come to a vote because their choice will affect them either in their primary race or the general election, as has happened before.

“They should all understand that accountability happens at the ballot box … If they do stand with McCarthy and others, forget about voting, just not speaking out loudly against it in the conversation about it, I think there will be an element of accountability for them in the next election cycle,” he said.

Seawright added that he expects more of a “clown circus show” that puts moderates in tough positions as the next election approaches.

Viet Shelton, a spokesperson for House Democrats’ campaign arm, told The Hill that vulnerable Republican incumbents have avoided addressing the multiple indictments facing Trump, and most have avoided directly and publicly condemning the “preposterous” idea of expungement.

“For the few that have desperately tried to distance themselves from it, voters will see it for what it is: empty rhetoric to distract from their long records of defending Trump no matter what,” Shelton said.

GOP strategists for their part warn that expungements votes could just force those Republicans already facing tough elections to have a steeper hill to climb.

“Why would you put folks that had an uphill race to win the first time around, why would you put them in a more difficult situation going forward?” said Doherty, the New York Republican.