Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas just avoided impeachment. A Republican motion was narrowly rejected by the House in a dramatic and extremely close vote. So far, Mayorkas has managed to stay alive. But his numerous detractors can smell hypocrisy.
A resolution demanding Secretary Mayorkas’s impeachment was submitted to the House by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in November. Mayorkas was accused of “Wilful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” and “Breach of public trust” by Greene, who presented a convincing case supported by extensive evidence. After that, the resolution was taken to the floor by the House Homeland Security Committee, and it was voted on by the House on February 6.
Although the resolution failed, the Biden administration won’t have been reassured by the results. Initially the vote was 215-215, with three GOP rebels –- Representatives Ken Buck (R-CO), Tom McClintock (R-CA), and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) –- voting with all 212 House Democrats. That was enough to ensure the resolution didn’t pass, but then Blake Moore (R-UT) flipped his vote, handing a 216-214 victory to Mayorkas’s defenders.
Notably, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) absence due to treatment for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, is the sole reason the resolution failed on the first count. Nevertheless, he has finally completed that course of treatment and is free to travel. Greene is hell-bent on getting her resolution voted on again before Scalise returns to Congress in the middle of February. The vote will pass the second time around because now that Scalise is back in the House, all it takes is for one Republican defector to alter their mind.
Of course, just because the resolution was passed does not imply that Mayorkas will be impeached. There is no chance of a conviction for the secretary in the Senate, where Democrats maintain a razor-thin majority. But it would be a terrible reflection on his inability to protect our borders.
