Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House Tuesday night in a narrow 214 to 213 vote, becoming the first cabinet official to be impeached in almost a century and a half.
William Belknap, Secretary of War to President Ulysses S. Grant, was impeached by the House in 1876, despite resigning before the vote.
Belknap was acquitted by the Senate, an outcome sure to be repeated if the Senate does not procedurally kill Mayorkas’s impeachment.
Nevertheless, Republicans can claim they secured a rare opportunity in a bitterly divided Congress to hold the Biden administration accountable on what could be the election-defining issue of 2024.
“Secretary Mayorkas’s willful refusal to enforce federal law created an unprecedented crisis at our southern border and left innocent Americans to pay the price,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement. “Because Mayorkas failed to do the honorable thing by resigning, House Republicans fulfilled our Constitutional duty by voting to impeach.”
Tuesday night’s outcome follows House Republicans’ failure by a single vote last week to impeach Mayorkas after a wheelchair-bound Rep. Al Green (D-TX) rolled into the House chamber from a Washington emergency room.
Republicans had not counted on Green making the vote, which proved decisive against impeachment.
House leadership moved forward with Tuesday night’s vote following the welcomed return of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) who has been in Louisiana since December receiving treatment for cancer. A Tuesday special election in New York’s Third Congressional District would keep Mayorkas safe if called for former Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY).
Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), Tom McClintock (R-CA), and Mike Gallagher R-WI) once again voted with Democrats against impeaching the embattled secretary, despite overwhelmingly popularity for the move among Republicans.
In a sign of the unpopularity of that position, after last week’s vote against impeachment, Gallagher announced his decision not to seek reelection to Congress.
The impeachment is a victory for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), the loudest and most persistent champion of booting Mayorkas from the administration. She and her allies claim that Mayorkas has intentionally refused to follow existing laws and lied to Congress, clear grounds for impeachment.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) arrives for a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on September 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) briefed House Republicans about the formal impeachment inquiry they are leading against President Joe Biden. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty)
Green called Mayorkas “the worst traitor” Tuesday in calling for the House to act.
The impeachment is doomed in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may pursue one of several options to quickly dispose of the options and prevent a brief trial where Mayorkas is certain to be acquitted altogether.
But the issue of border security will continue to haunt Democrats leading up to the November election, with House Republicans holding the line insisting H.R.2, their tough border security legislation that passed last year, serve as the baseline for continued negotiations on border security.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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