NEW YORK POST
House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday, reversing their failed vote on the extraordinary move a week ago — and setting up a showdown in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The House voted 214-213 to pass two articles of impeachment against President Biden’s chief border enforcement officer on charges of “willful and systemic refusal to comply” with federal immigration law and lying to Congress about the border being “secure.”
Mayorkas, 64, is only the second Cabinet official to be impeached after Secretary of War William Belknap, who resigned in 1876 from President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration hours before the House formally charged him with corruption.
Belknap was later acquitted by the Senate — an outcome also likely for Mayorkas given that politically vulnerable Senate Democrats such as Jon Tester of Montana have dismissed the House’s impeachment push as “political games.”
But some Republicans in the Senate — which puts individuals on trial if they are impeached, or charged, by the House — are vowing to make the case for removal nonetheless.
“There will absolutely be many who believe his case merits removal from office and will vote accordingly,” a Senate GOP aide told The Post. “Since Democrats control the chamber, however, it’s basically certain that the vote will fail — if [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-NY] allows it to happen in the first place.”
“There has never in American history been an impeachment where the Senate has refused to vote on the matter,” the aide added. “If Schumer kills it procedurally, without a vote, it would be unprecedented.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has already named 11 GOP impeachment managers to make the case for conviction during a Senate trial: House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (Tenn.) and Reps. Michael Guest (Miss.), Michael McCaul (Texas), August Pfluger (Texas), Clay Higgins (La.), Ben Cline (Va.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Andrew Garbarino (NY), Harriet Hageman (Wyo.), Laurel Lee (Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), who authored the resolution.
Three Republicans — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (Wis.) — opposed the resolution both this week and last week, but no other GOP lawmakers joined them on the subsequent vote.
