Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but those hapless House Republicans have finally achieved something big: an end to impeachments in kind.
Of course, this is the opposite of the achievement they promised two years ago, before the midterm elections that gave them control of the Chamber. At that time, some breastbeaters were swearing accuse President Biden, as well as members of his Cabinet, starting with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the administration’s border security czar, and passing through Atty. General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray (a donald trump remaining, in fact), Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and God knows who else.
They narrowly managed to impeach Mayorkas on the second try – more on that later. But overall, they failed spectacularly. Happily.
And although Republicans won’t say it, their humiliation has all but exorcised their zeal to abuse one of the House’s most solemn powers under the Constitution: its ability to charge executive or judicial officials with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” intending to Senate to try the alleged offender and expel him from office.
The latest and, hopefully, final blow to the impeachment follies was struck on Wednesday. Two months after House Republicans made Mayorkas the first Cabinet member to be impeached in nearly 150 years, they finally sent the clearly political accusations to the Democratic-controlled Senate, which took just three hours to dismiss them. The Senate concluded that the two charges – that he “intentionally and systematically refused to comply with federal immigration laws” and violated the public trust – did not exceed the high standards of the Constitution.
This is what explains the rise of the House Republicans’ lead impeachment manager, Representative Mark Green. “Get the popcorn,” the Tennessean told party donors last year. “It’ll be fun.”
What makes the collapse of Mayorkas’ prosecution even more disheartening for House Republicans is the fact that they pressed the issue when it became clear that their main effort, impeaching Biden, was failing.
With Mayorkas, at least they gave beloved leader Trump and the party’s MAGA base something. But now they are essentially 0 for 2.
House Republicans have all but given up on the Biden impeachment circus. Many months after opening an inquiry strangely based on nothing more than yet-to-be-determined charges, Republicans no concrete evidence of an impeachable offense by the president. His supposed main witness was indicted for lying to the FBI. Other witnesses undercut any case against the president. And consequently they don’t have enough Republican support to continue.
Clown lead investigator, House Oversight Committee chairman and Fox News regular James Comer of Kentucky last month told donors in a fundraising letter – Have you noticed a pattern here, Republican leaders playing with financial interests? – that instead of seeking to impeach Biden, he will send a criminal complaint (again, crimes TBD) to the Department of Justice. The hope is that the department is about to come under new management – by a re-elected Trump, Mr. “I am your retribution” himself – that will welcome the accusations.
As Biden’s impeachment effort foundered, Mayorkas’ impeachment took center stage, doubling as Republicans’ platform to stoke voters’ anger over surges of migrants at the border. The process continued even as the secretary spent countless hours in his daily work, negotiating with senators from both parties to reach an agreement on the most conservative immigration bill in decades, with billions for security. – only to see hard-line Republicans in Congress nullify the deal at Trump’s behest. The hardliners said the silent part out loud: they wanted to deprive Biden of a victory and keep the border debate alive as a campaign issue.
Just more proof that Biden and Mayorkas’ impeachment crusades were purely political exercises.
Both Senate and House Republicans are complaining that Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York and his fellow Senate Democrats set a terrible precedent by dropping the impeachment case against Mayorkas without a full trial.
Schumer and company have set a precedent, to be sure, but a good precedent: the Senate need not take seriously any articles of impeachment based on political and political bickering rather than high crimes or misdemeanors.
Constitutional scholars from across the spectrum and even some Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in denigrating the allegations against Mayorkas. “It’s as trivial as impeachment can be,” Michael Gerhardt, author of “The Law of Presidential Impeachment,” told Politico. The case was “designed to put President Biden’s immigration policies on trial,” he added. “That’s what an election is for.”
Exactly. But MAGA Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said Democrats “will regret” rejecting Mayorkas’ articles of impeachment when a Republican-run Senate someday does the same with a House of Representatives’ articles of impeachment. Democratic majority. That’s a danger, but it doesn’t worry me. Democrats take the government too seriously to accuse a Republican for reasons as blatantly political as those against Mayorkas.
Take, for example, the Democrats’ most recent impeachment resolution, the one against Trump after January 6, 2021, to “inciting violence against the United States government.” If Republicans, in kind, choose in the future to discard articles of impeachment that cover actions as serious as this, they will be able to respond to history, as those who voted for Trump’s acquittal at that time already do. (And by the way, at that time 45 Republican senators also voted for release the January 6 count against Trump without a Senate trial.)
Republicans are based on a false premise when claim, as Comer did, that Democrats “cheapened impeachment when they impeached Donald Trump twice.” Both Trump impeachments, including the first for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden before the 2020 election will easily cover up the kind of misconduct the Founders had in mind, I’m confident. Never mind that Senate Republicans have always let the former president off the hook.
Trump’s two well-deserved impeachments are so different from Mayorkas and Biden’s attempt that they shouldn’t even be called tit for tat. They are apples and oranges. And sour grapes.
This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
