The right-wingers need a scalp; the target likely will be Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
House Republicans’ talk about impeaching President Biden eventually will falter. There is no case, and a vote would be political suicide for a dozen or more GOP incumbents.
But this is about revenge for the Trump impeachments. The right-wingers need a scalp; the target likely will be Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. There is no legal legitimacy, but the calculation is that an impeachment centering on the border may resonate with voters going into 2024.
The attacks on Mayorkas have been personal and petty. Let’s “stop funding that smirking son of a bitch,” Rep. Chip Roy proclaimed. The Texas congressman is a leader of the impeach Mayorkas crazies.
In reality, this is “all political theater,” says Michael J. Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina specializing in constitutional law and who has written extensively on impeachment. “Their complaints are that he and the president are not following the same immigration (or border) policy as Trump. It certainly doesn’t follow,” he says, that “these are impeachable offenses. This would be a stunt to be carried out in a presidential election year.”
In 235 years, the House has only impeached one Cabinet office: William Belknap in 1876, for bribery. He was acquitted by the Senate.
Thus, it’s no surprise that Republicans, like Rep. Roy, often resort to ad hominem attacks.
Louisiana Republican Rep. Mike Johnson called the Homeland Security Secretary “the most dishonest person” to ever testify before the Judiciary Committee; they never called Trump.
Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck called Mayorkas a “traitor.” (I first met Buck when I was covering, for Bloomberg News, his unsuccessful 2010 Senate run. In a testy interview he asked me if Mike Bloomberg was “a socialist.
