The impeachment that wasn’t
Is there anything sadder than unrequited hate? House “Speaker” and personal Renfield to Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, is about to find out. Johnson informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer by letter that the House will send articles of impeachment for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on April 10.
The impeachment underscores House Republican performative outrage over Mayorkas’ alleged failure to address the “crisis” at the US Mexican border with sufficiently bigoted and fanatical zeal. Amazingly, Johnson ostensibly expects Senate Republicans, who defeated a measure to beef up border security as an addendum to providing aid to Ukraine and Israel, to convict Mayorkas for supposedly failing to properly address the same border security. It’s one of those little ironies that often accompany rank hypocrisy.
There were seven impeachment managers to impeach Donald Trump for attempting to blackmail the president of Ukraine, and nine impeachment managers for Trump’s insurrection impeachment. Johnson has named no less than eleven impeachment managers for the Mayorkas impeachment. One of the impeachment managers Johnson named was no less than his very own screeching nemesis Marjorie Traitor Greene, the very same idiot who recently filed a motion to oust Johnson from the speakership. It’s yet another one of those little ironies that often accompany rank hypocrisy.
Mia Ehrenberg, a DHS spokesperson, called the effort a “baseless, unconstitutional impeachment” that is “without a shred of evidence or legitimate constitutional grounds.” Numerous Constitutional experts agree, saying the evidence (or lack thereof) for impeachment of Mayorkas does not rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
No one who isn’t brain damaged is fooled. This is an election-year stunt by jejune Republican simpletons who have nothing to impeach Joe Biden with, and they’re hoping a certain-to-fail attempt to impeach Mayorkas will serve as a sort of surrogate repudiation of an administration that has posted record successes across the spectrum.
Meanwhile the Republican Lord and Monster Donald Trump faces four indictments, financial humiliation, official condemnation as a loathsome rapist and advancing mental incapacity. Like Janis Joplin, Republicans must make a-mends.
Once he receives the kangaroo impeachment managers, Senate Majority Leader Schumer can immediately put the measure to a floor vote to dismiss all charges. The Senate could then get back to the business of doing the people’s actual work.
The last time a cabinet member was impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap way back in 1876. After wasting most of the year on his impeachment, Belknap was acquitted by the Senate. The Mayorkas impeachment, if it goes to trial, will almost certainly end the same way.
The impeachment of Mayorkas will pose the proverbial question, What if they gave an impeachment and nobody came? Mike Johnson and his embarrassment of impeachment managers have “effed” around long enough. They are about to find out. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.