(RepublicanNews.org) – The Homeland Security Committee has chosen Tuesday, January 30th, to hold a meeting in which to prepare articles of impeachment for Alejandro Mayorkas, the current Homeland Security Secretary. Originally scheduled for January 31st, the meeting, which will include a vote on his possible impeachment, has been moved forward by a day with further floor action planned as soon as February.
The bipartisan committee has so far held several hearings and released multiple interim reports on the accusations leveled against Mayorkas, including that he has abused his power and failed to uphold the law. Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn) noted in his statement that the demand for investigation into Mayorkas’ actions came from both sides of the political aisle, with 201 Democrats voting to refer articles of impeachment to his committee.
Despite this, the Department of Homeland Security has been scathing in its assessment of the attempt to impeach Mayorkas, declaring it a waste of time and a “harmful distraction”. White House spokesman Ian Sams went further in a memo, lambasting the move as “unconstitutional” and deriding it as the efforts of “extremists”. Sams also claimed it was an unprecedented move, although there has been a single example of a Cabinet official having been impeached in American history: in 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached, a first for the country.
The accusations against Mayorkas come in a period of unrest and disagreement among Republicans and Democrats alike, with a lack of consensus on how to deal with the ongoing border crisis. Earlier in January, 14 House Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in denouncing Pres. Biden’s border policies after an estimated 300,000 illegal immigrants crossed the southern border in December 2023 alone. However, some have argued that while those border policies are to be blamed, Secretary Mayorkas should not be impeached as a result of working within those policies.
Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who had previously been called by Republicans as a witness in a hearing to consider impeachment against President Biden, said that Mayorkas had not committed any impeachable actions, but had simply followed the “dead wrong” policies set by the President himself.
Chairman Green, on the other hand, accused Mayorkas of failing to uphold his oath and said that the time had come for “accountability” after three years of failing to prevent such large numbers of illegal migrants from entering the US.
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