Dem
51
GOP
49
James Madison is probably rolling over in his grave. The clause in the Constitution empowering Congress to impeach federal officials was intended to remove a corrupt president or other officials who had misused the powers of their offices. It was not intended as a tit-for-tat "you impeached one of our guys so we are entitled to impeach one of yours." But that is where we are headed, as House Republicans have now released two articles of impeachment in an (undoubtedly futile) attempt to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Article 1 accuses Mayorkas of violating immigration laws. Article 2 accuses him of falling short of his duties, misleading Congress, and obstructing their investigation. House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) said of Mayorkas: "These articles lay out a clear, compelling, and irrefutable case for Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment. He has willfully and systemically refused to comply with immigration laws enacted by Congress. He has breached the public trust by knowingly making false statements to Congress and the American people, and obstructing congressional oversight of his department."
Now take this in the context of the item above. They want to impeach Mayorkas for not defending the border, but the Speaker of the House has said in advance that he won't even consider the upcoming Senate bill that would give Mayorkas the funding to defend the border. They don't want to defend the border. They want to campaign on it not being defended. It is grandstanding at its worst. Democrats, DHS officials, and even some conservatives see this as an abuse of power by House Republicans. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the ranking member of the DHS Committee, said: "What is glaringly missing from these articles is any real charge or even a shred of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors—the Constitutional standard for impeachment."
DHS officials have—not unexpectedly—complained that Congress has never provided enough funding to catch and detain every individual who enters the country illegally. After all, when Donald Trump was president and wanted to build a wall along the Mexican border, after Mexico refused to pay for it, so did Congress. He used DoD funds to build 458 miles of wall. If Congress had ponied up at least some of the money, more miles of wall would have been built. Now the Republicans want to impeach Mayorkas for not catching all the immigrants. Maybe our memory fails us, but we don't recall House Republicans attempting to impeach then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen who served under Donald Trump, when the border was just as porous as it is now.
It is not even certain that Mayorkas will be impeached. No House Democrat will vote for impeachment. A vote to impeach on Trumped-up charges could also be painful for Republicans who represent districts with a large number of college-educated voters who can easily see that this is all politics with no basis in reality. Needless to say, if the impeachment passes the House, Democrats will start running ads that Republicans have no interest in governing. If Mayorkas is actually impeached, the Senate trial probably won't last much longer than a day or two. We expect that quite a few Republicans will vote to acquit Mayorkas; they will probably include Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and maybe even Mitch McTurtle (R-KY), who generally doesn't like stupid moves like this that give the Democrats campaign material. (V)