Even if the full House impeaches the Homeland Security secretary, he is unlikely to be convicted in a trial in the Democratic-led Senate.
A House vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas narrowly failed on Feb. 6. The final vote was 214 to 216. A measure to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas narrowly failed in the House on Tuesday, after three Republicans voted with Democrats against what would have been the first impeachment of a Cabinet member in nearly 150 years.
The failed vote was a stunning rebuke of a months-long investigation into Mayorkas that legal experts and even some Republicans had raised concerns about.Reps. Tom McClintock , Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher bucked the party line to vote against the measure, joining with Democrats who have decried the process as a sham with only two hearings last month that featured no fact witnesses or testimony from the secretary. Even if the measure had passed, Mayorkas was unlikely to have been convicted in a trial in the Democratic-led Senate. When the vote unexpectedly came to a tie after Gallagher’s vote against the measure, he was swarmed by his colleagues on the House floor in a last-ditch attempt to change his mind. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jodey Arrington were among the members who approached Gallagher and animatedly tried to persuade him to flip his vote. Gallagher stood listening with his arms folded across his chest as he intermittently gesticulated and shook his head. As Democrats shouted “order” in unison to bring the tied vote to a close, Rep. Blake D. Moore eventually approached the lectern and changed his vote against the measure, allowing Republican leadership to possibly bring the measure up for a vote again at a later date.Johnson told reporters after the embarrassing defeat that he planned to bring up the vote to impeach Mayorkas again. In a statement after the vote failed, a spokesperson for DHS said, “If House Republicans are serious about border security, they should abandon these political games, and instead support the bipartisan national security agreement in the Senate to get DHS the enforcement resources we need.” During the first scheduled vote on the floor Tuesday evening, both Democrats and Republicans had one member absence — meaning that Republicans could afford to lose three votes in the vote to impeach Mayorkas. But Rep. Al Green suddenly appeared for the impeachment vote, which was second. One of Green’s closest friends, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II , told The Washington Post in an interview that he realized Green had missed the previous vote and might be the difference in the margin. He called the Texan — twice — at 6:13 p.m., according to his phone’s call logs. But Green showed up at the last minute, tying the vote at 215. “I panicked,” Cleaver said.The remarkable scene on the House floor was preceded by a suspenseful day of vote counting as several members voiced concerns in a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning about supporting the impeachment of Mayorkas in the absence of compelling evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. Reps. David Joyce and Patrick T. McHenry were among those who were on the fence about the measure in the lead up to the vote but ultimately voted to advance the two articles of impeachment. “A lot of people trying to make someone change their opinion,” Joyce, who considered voting no, told reporters of the gaggle around Gallagher after the vote. Gallagher and Joyce spoke at length earlier Tuesday, which Joyce found reassuring.In a statement released on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Gallagher said that he was against “creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle” that wouldn’t “secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable and will set a dangerous new precedent that will be weaponized against future Republican administrations.” When Johnson was asked by reporters about how he planned to convince colleagues to advance the measure in a future vote, Rep. Joe Wilson responded that they needed to “pray.”“I don’t understand why they don’t count the votes,” Rep. Ralph Norman told reporters, referring to Republican leadership. “If we can’t convince the Gallaghers, the Bucks, the McClintocks, know it before you go and make the call before we get on the floor,” Norman added, referring to the three Republicans who voted against impeaching Mayorkas.As House GOP lawmakers worked to lock up the votes for Mayorkas’s impeachment throughout the day, they simultaneously worked to kill the potential for a legislative remedy to secure the border. Despite their opposition to policy changes that would address some of their shared concerns, Republicans in the House railed against Mayorkas for willfully failing to enforce existing immigration law and for breaching public trust. Democrats countered that Republicans failed to make a constitutionally viable case and that Mayorkas, in his capacity as a Cabinet secretary, has broad discretionary authority to implement the Biden administration’s immigration policy. They also argued that Mayorkas, like other DHS secretaries who served before him, has lacked adequate funding and personnel to detain every migrant as outlined under the law., accusing him of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and breach of the public trust. Democrats repeatedly asserted during the hearing that Republicans have no constitutional basis to impeach Mayorkas, and they said that GOP lawmakers have struggled in two recent hearings to detail clear evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green opened debate Tuesday by claiming Mayorkas’s negligent handling of the southern border had left House Republicans with no other option than to proceed with articles of impeachment. By the end of the two-hour debate period, Green had raised his voice to a shout, and accused Mayorkas of throwing the Constitution “in the garbage.” Democrats have criticized the impeachment proceedings as politically motivated, pointing out that Republicans are trying to oust Mayorkas for supposedly neglecting to secure the southern border while at the same timeRep. Jamie Raskin said it was a miracle that senators had reached a bipartisan immigration agreement that was acceptable to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and dozens of GOP senators. And yet, he said, House Republicans would not consider it.“Why? Because Donald Trump doesn’t want a border solution,” Raskin said. “He wants a border problem. Nothing else to run on.” Standing next to a sign that read “STUNTS OVER SOLUTIONS” during floor debate Tuesday, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said House Republicans were focused on impeaching Mayorkas “without any evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors” rather than the Senate’s bipartisan border security bill.In a statement Monday, the White House said it strongly opposed the anticipated impeachment in the House. “Impeaching Secretary Mayorkas would trivialize this solemn constitutional power and invite more partisan abuse of this authority in the future,” the White House said in a statement. “It would do nothing to solve the challenges we face in securing our Nation’s borders.”President Biden on Tuesday blamed former president Donald Trump for the impending collapse of a bipartisan Senate package of border measures and funding for Ukraine and Israel. FollowHouse is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkasthat Abbott’s stand against federal orders is communicated in language that glorifies vigilantism and promotes white supremacist talking points.
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House Republicans Fail To Impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro MayorkasJennifer Bendery is a senior politics reporter for HuffPost. She has covered Congress and the White House for HuffPost since April 2011. She previously reported on Congress for four years for Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, and spent four years covering the Texas Legislature for GalleryWatch in Austin, TX.
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