Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican, has introduced a resolution to wipe both of President Donald Trump's impeachments from the congressional record, and the effort now has the backing of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, one of the most influential voices on the right side of the Capitol.
House Resolution 1211, as identified in the Washington Examiner's reporting, aims to formally erase the two impeachments the House approved in 2019 and 2021. Supporters argue that recently declassified intelligence materials have strengthened the case that both proceedings were politically tainted from the start.
Jordan's endorsement gives the measure real weight. The Ohio Republican chairs the committee through which any impeachment-related action would pass, and his public support signals this is not just a messaging exercise.
Jordan told Fox News Digital plainly where he stands. His statement framed both impeachments as instruments of political warfare rather than legitimate constitutional oversight.
"Democrats weaponized impeachment against President Trump with politically motivated charges. We applaud Chairman Issa for leading the fight to expunge this sham from the record."
That language, "weaponized," "sham", reflects a view widely held among House Republicans that Democrats abused the impeachment power for partisan ends. Whether this resolution can convert that view into a floor vote remains an open question.
Jonathan Wilcox, Issa's spokesman, told the Washington Examiner that Jordan's support changes the political math considerably.
"Anytime you have the support of Jim Jordan, you feel like you're on a freight train to winning."
Wilcox also pointed to what he described as new evidence bolstering the resolution's case. He cited recently declassified materials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now led by Tulsi Gabbard, which supporters say indicate the whistleblower behind the first impeachment coordinated with congressional Democrats before filing the underlying allegation.
The declassified intelligence adds a dimension that prior expungement attempts lacked. Gabbard's office filed a criminal referral related to the matter and sent it to the Justice Department in April. The specifics of that referral have not been made public, but its existence gives Issa's allies a concrete development to point to, not just old grievances, but a live law-enforcement referral.
Wilcox drew a direct line between the new disclosures and the resolution's rationale.
"This is our first and best resolution, others have been crafted, but you should take into consideration the new information that has come to light. It is incontrovertible that the previous impeachment processes were tainted, intentionally, and the Congress has a real vested interest in making this right."
That claim, that the processes were "intentionally" tainted, is strong language from a spokesman for a sitting member of Congress. It frames the resolution not as a symbolic gesture but as a corrective action grounded in evidence that was previously hidden from public view.
The broader pattern of House Republicans pressing procedural and institutional fights has been visible across multiple fronts this Congress. The same caucus that is now pushing to rewrite impeachment history has also been blocking Senate bills to force action on the SAVE Act, demonstrating a willingness to use every lever available.
Issa's resolution is not the first of its kind. The effort to expunge Trump's impeachments has been building for years, though earlier versions never reached the floor.
In 2022, then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma introduced resolutions targeting both impeachments. Those measures went nowhere in a narrowly divided House still finding its footing after Republicans reclaimed the majority.
A year later, in 2023, then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Elise Stefanik introduced their own resolutions to formally clear Trump's record. Both lawmakers argued the impeachments were unconstitutional and politically motivated. Those resolutions also stalled.
What distinguishes the current push, at least in the eyes of its sponsors, is the combination of Jordan's committee support and the declassified intelligence materials. Previous efforts relied on arguments about process and motive. This one claims to have documentary backing from the intelligence community itself.
That said, the resolution's path forward is far from certain. The Washington Examiner's reporting does not indicate whether House leadership plans to bring H. Res. 1211 to the floor, how many cosponsors it has attracted, or what procedural vehicle would carry it. Those gaps matter. A resolution with Jordan's blessing but no floor schedule is still, for now, a statement of intent.
Expunging an impeachment is constitutionally uncharted territory. The House has never formally erased an impeachment from its records. Whether it has the authority to do so, and what legal effect such a vote would carry, is a question scholars have debated since the idea first surfaced.
Supporters argue the House has inherent authority over its own records and proceedings. Critics counter that an impeachment vote is a completed constitutional act, and that a subsequent Congress cannot retroactively undo it any more than it could un-pass a law by resolution alone.
None of that legal uncertainty has slowed the political momentum. For many House Republicans, the symbolic value of expungement is itself the point. It would represent a formal institutional judgment that the impeachments were illegitimate, a rebuke not just of the charges but of the Democrats who brought them.
This willingness to wage institutional fights has defined the House Republican conference in the 119th Congress. Members have pressured Speaker Johnson to block Senate legislation as leverage on priorities ranging from election integrity to border security.
The timeline of events tells its own story. The House impeached Trump for the first time in 2019 over his phone call with Ukraine's president. The Senate acquitted him. The House impeached him again in 2021 following the January 6 Capitol breach. The Senate acquitted him a second time.
Within a year of Republicans reclaiming the House majority, members began introducing expungement resolutions. Mullin moved first in 2022. Greene and Stefanik followed in 2023. Now Issa has picked up the effort in the 119th Congress with what his office calls the strongest version yet.
The escalation tracks a broader Republican argument: that the impeachments were not just wrong on the merits but were conducted through processes that violated basic fairness. The declassified materials from Gabbard's office, suggesting the first impeachment's whistleblower worked with Democratic members before filing, give that argument a factual hook it previously lacked.
Gabbard's criminal referral to the Justice Department in April adds another layer. If the Justice Department acts on it, the political case for expungement grows stronger. If it does not, the referral still serves as evidence that a Senate-confirmed intelligence chief found the underlying conduct serious enough to flag for prosecutors.
House Republicans have shown no shortage of appetite for confrontation this session. The same conference passed its own DHS stopgap bill after rejecting the Senate's version, and members have repeatedly forced floor fights over spending and enforcement priorities.
The resolution's fate depends on factors not yet visible. Does Speaker Johnson schedule a vote? Can Issa assemble enough cosponsors to demonstrate broad conference support? Will moderate Republicans in swing districts balk at the political optics of what Democrats will inevitably frame as a loyalty test?
Jordan's backing answers one of those questions. The Judiciary chairman does not lend his name to efforts he considers dead on arrival. His statement to Fox News Digital was unequivocal, and his committee controls the resolution's first procedural gate.
For their part, Democrats will argue that expungement is an attempt to rewrite history. Republicans will counter that the history was written with a crooked pen in the first place, and that the declassified evidence proves it.
The broader dynamic inside the House GOP conference continues to favor aggressive institutional action. Members have been willing to pass their own funding legislation over Senate objections and to use procedural tools that previous Republican majorities avoided.
Whether expungement ultimately passes or not, the effort itself carries a message: Republicans believe the impeachments were acts of political abuse, and they intend to say so on the record, with a vote, not just a press release.
When Congress uses its most solemn power for partisan ends, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the next Congress wants to take it back. The only question is whether this one has the votes to do it.