If you haven’t heard, Joe Biden isn’t the only one facing impeachment proceedings of late. Additionally, it was announced that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is also facing the axe.
He just didn’t find out in the usual way. Instead, he was confronted with the reality on live TV.
If you’re anything like me, you don’t regularly watch MSNBC. And that means you likely missed a Wednesday appearance on the outlet’s “Morning Joe” show by Mayorkas. It was during this episode that the news of now a filed impeachment inquiry was broken to him.
It happened during the end of the segment. Co-anchor Willie Geist began to read a report published earlier that day by Punchbowl News.
“The House of Homeland Security Committee is formally moving ahead with impeachment proceedings against you, with the hearing being held a week from today.” Geist then asked, “What’s your reaction?”
To Mayorkas’ credit, he didn’t visibly flinch at the news. However, to say it wasn’t a shock to his system would be a bit of an understatement. As you can tell from his voice, it takes a little while to become steady again, full of shakes and hesitancy.
But again, the DHS Secretary handled himself rather well. He immediately went into what probably seemed like a good example of him doing his job, something most in the US, including House Republicans behind the impeachment against him, claiming he hasn’t been doing.
He says that he and his staff are continually “working on solutions.” According to him, he goes to meeting after meeting, all working toward the common goal of negotiating for solutions. Again, he noted, “That’s what this administration is focused on: Solutions to problems.”
But one look at the ongoing immigration and border crisis would seem to tell a different story, wouldn’t it?
And Republican Representative Mark Green, who leads the House Homeland Security Committee, says there is plenty of evidence to impeach Mayorkas for those failures.
Green said in a statement, “Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability.”
And so, Green has mustered a “bipartisan House vote” to begin impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas.
Now, it’s not exactly likely that Mayorkas will be removed from office despite this process.
Such proceedings are exactly the same for any Cabinet official as they are for a sitting president. Basically, the House votes on the matter in what can be called an indictment, and then the Senate takes a turn providing a vote or trial.
As you likely know, the House currently has a slim Republican majority, making it likely that the House will impeach Mayorkas. But much like Trump was only impeached by the House, the same decision is expected to be seen in the Senate since it has only the slightest of a Democratic majority.
Plus, history shows that actual impeachments overall are very unlikely. The only time it has successfully occurred, in fact, was in 1876 when both houses voted to impeach then-Secretary of War William Belknap. Of course, he resigned before he was officially ousted.
In any case, impeachment proceedings have begun for Mayorkas, with the first hearing to be on January 10.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.
