Can President Donald Trump get his impeachment records…erased, or expunged?
Not legally. But he might try to do it anyway.
The Story
Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz recently stated to right-leaning Just the News that he believes, based on a new report from DNI Tulsi Gabbard on a whistleblower from Trump’s 2019 impeachment, the impeachment itself can be “expunged.”
“It’s never been done. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done,” Dershowitz, a staunch Trump ally, said to the publication.
How We Got Here
The report from Gabbard insinuates that the impeachment was improper because the whistleblower had a bias against Trump. However, other evidence collected for the impeachment and the subsequent trial against Trump in early 2020 are still not in dispute — we know, for a fact, that Trump tried to leverage aid to Ukraine by demanding they help him find “dirt” on Joe Biden ahead of the presidential election.
And biases against lawmakers do not make impeachment charges against them improper, especially if the evidence is there.
“Her presentation (to the extent that one could credibly call it that) bordered on silly, which helps explain why it generated so little attention when Gabbard’s office released it,” MS NOW producer Steve Benen wrote. “But it pleased the DNI’s audience of one,” referring to Trump.)
Why It Matters
Importantly, what Dershowitz is calling for here has “never been done” for two reasons: FIRST, impeachment is rare itself, so an expungement (if it ever existed) would be rare, too; and SECOND, there is no constitutional mechanism for “expunging” impeachments after they happen.
Dershowitz suggested that it doesn’t matter. “Impeachment is a quasi-judicial procedure, whether you have to go back to Congress and ask them to expunge it or go to the courts,” he said.
But that’s not how the Constitution works. There is a process for doing things, and notably, the process for impeachment does NOT include a means for reversing one.
Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up for debate, I suppose — but it doesn’t change the fact that it can’t be done, short of a constitutional amendment changing the document.
Not that it matters to Trump. On Monday, he made two posts on the subject — one in which he merely shared an article showcasing Dershowitz’s comments, and the other encouraging Dershowitz to “expunge” the impeachment for him.
“Alan, one of the greats, should do it!” Trump wrote.
And the illegality/inability of an “expungement” is the point here, really: that Trump, yet again, wants to have something done for him, personally, that is outside of the bounds of the Constitution.
Keep in mind: Dershowitz also believes Trump can serve a third term as president. Despite being a legal professor, he’s shown, now and in the past, that his ideas are incompatible with the Constitution.
What’s Next?
Will anything come of this? Probably not. With the midterms fast-approaching, and Trump’s incredibly low approval ratings hurting them, Republicans would be absolutely stupid to try to pass a resolution “expunging” Trump’s impeachment(s). Putting it to the courts to decide is also a non-starter, as it would likely result in a months- or even years-long effort to decide the matter, after which, given no constitutional mechanism in place, they’d likely rule against the move.
But again: even without likely action on this, the short commentary by Trump — calling for expungement where no process to have that happen truly exists — exposes, yet again, his obsession with rewriting history, and his desire to leave a legacy that is incongruent with the reality of his presidency.
Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (edited)
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