Kevin McCarthy, Who Bashed Trump After Jan. 6., Now Backs Effort To Expunge Impeachments
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is backing two resolutions introduced by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) looking to expunge Donald Trump’s two impeachments by the House of Representatives.
Speaking to reporters while exiting the Capitol on Friday, McCarthy said that he felt it was “appropriate” to expunge the impeachments “because it never should have gone through.”
Trump was impeached twice over the course of his presidency. First in 2019 over allegations that he tried to extort Ukrainian government officials into launching a public investigation into Joe Biden in order to cripple his run for president in 2020. Trump was impeached again in 2021 for “incitement of insurrection” in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted in the Senate in both instances.
McCarthy added to reporters on Friday that he felt the proceedings against Trump were invalid because the first “was not based on true facts” and the second “on the basis of no due process.”
Since Trump’s departure from office, McCarthy has been an instrumental figure in Republican efforts to rewrite the aftermath of the 2020 election. He cozied up to Trump in the weeks following the attack on the Capitol, did everything he could to stonewall the bipartisan investigation into what happened on Jan. 6, and in February he provided former Fox host Tucker Carlson with exclusive, virtually unrestricted access to CCTV security footage from the day of the riot. Carlson in turn aired cherry-picked samples of the footage to present the rioters as “orderly and meek” sightseers who were being targeted by the Department of Justice and the Democratic party.
McCarthy’s efforts have been in service of protecting both Trump and House Republicans, many of whom were linked to meetings and planning sessions with the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally-turned-riot. More than 100 members of the Republican caucus supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
McCarthy’s view that the proceedings against Trump in the aftermath of Jan. 6 were unfair appears to be a stark shift from his stance in the immediate aftermath of the riot. “Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: He bears responsibility for his words and actions. No ifs, ands, or buts,” McCarthy told members of his caucus during a call days after the attack. “I asked him personally today if he holds responsibility for what happened, if he feels bad for what happened, and he told me he does have some responsibility for what happened, and he needed to acknowledge that.”
McCarthy also said in the leaked audio that he was done with Trump. “I’ve had it with this guy,” he said. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend it, and nobody should defend it.”
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