By a vote of 214-213, the House voted to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vote comes a week after Republicans failed to impeach Mayorkas.
Mayorkas becomes the first cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876 when Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached by the House for corruption. Unlike Belknap, Mayorkas did not stand accused of corruption, bribery, treason nor any other high crime or misdemeanor. Republicans simply disagreed with Mayorkas as a proxy to President Biden concerning border policies.
While one might disagree with the Biden Administration's set of policies on the southern border, the implementation of those policies or any other set of public policies are not impeachable offenses. If they were then every President and Cabinet member would be subject to impeachment on any policy.
Yet I believe this is precisely the point. In impeaching Mayorkas (and possibly down the road President Biden) Republicans are trying to minimize the two impeachments against defeated, former President Donald Trump. Should Democrats bring up Trump's two impeachments, Republicans can simply say, "Your team is just as bad," or "Everyone is corrupt," even though it couldn't be further from the truth. But the bottom line is both Trump and Mayorkas have been impeached and perhaps President Biden, too. To many voters, an impeachment is an impeachment regardless of the circumstances.
Of course, the Senate will not convict Mayorkas. But the Senate didn't convict Trump either time. Fair or not, Mayorkas will wear the impeachment scarlet letter for the rest of his life.
No comments:
Post a Comment