Republicans narrowly impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over false allegations and baseless claims, making the Cuba-born Biden administration official only the second Cabinet member impeached since the country’s founding.
Republican Rep. Thomas H. Kean, Jr. cast the deciding vote to fire the Cuban-born refugee from his job despite a total lack of evidence that the chief public safety guardian engaged in any “high crime” or “misdemeanor.”
Mayorkas essentially faced impeachment for the same two reasons that Secretary of War William W. Belknap did in 1876 — racism and political chicanery.
Although Representative Hiester Clymer and Belknap had been college roommates, the congressman, who was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures, was virulently racist.
Elected Pennsylvania state senator in 1860, Clymer was adamantly opposed to Abraham Lincoln’s administration, the Republican Party’s prosecution of the American Civil War, and state legislation that supported the war effort.
In 1870, Belknap was granted the sole power to appoint and license sutlers with ownership rights to highly lucrative tradership monopolies at U.S. military forts on the Western frontier.
Caleb P. Marsh testified to the Clymer Committee that after he was appointed, Belknap had personally taken profit payments as part of a partnership agreement between Marsh and John S. Evans, the civilian merchant who previously held the license and was allowed by Marsh to continue selling provisions to the soldiers at Fort Sill.
Belknap was impeached on March 2, 1876, when the House passed five articles of impeachment, but he was acquitted by the Senate. President Ulysses S. Grant had Attorney General Pierrepont launch an investigation into the allegations but no charges were filed by the Justice Department against Belknap federal trial was dismissed by Judge Arthur MacArthur Sr.
While there was testimony that Belknap shared in profits from a license he granted, much of it was hearsay and the fact that he was acquitted by the Senate and not charged by the Justice Department raises questions about whether something other than kickbacks might have motivated his persecution.
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Belknap joined the Union Army.
A natural leader and veteran of the Iowa Home Guard who had attained the rank of captain, he was commissioned as a major in the 15th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He took part in numerous engagements, including the battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded, and the first battle of Corinth.
He served as a regimental, brigade, division, and corps commander, and served in high-level staff positions. By the end of the war, Belknap had been promoted to brigadier general and received a brevet promotion to major general of volunteers.
The Reconstruction era was a period in United States history following the American Civil War, dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of abolishing slavery and reintegrating the former Confederate States of America into the United States.
During the Reconstruction era, Belknap’s War Department and the U.S. military worked under the supervision of President Grant and the United States Attorney General’s office to occupy the former Confederacy and attempt to implement changes in government and the economy, while protecting freedmen from an increasingly violent insurgency.
Belknap’s mission included working with the Justice Department to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan, a policy opposed by Clymer and most of his political allies.
After the American Civil War ended, Clymer unsuccessfully ran for the Pennsylvania Governor’s office in 1866 on a white supremacist platform against Union Major-General John W. Geary, who ultimately served two terms.
In the controversial 1866 election for Governor of Pennsylvania, Clymer’s campaign produced some of the most virulently graphic racist posters and pamphlets of the decade.
The truth is not that modern racism began during the Civil War, but the war and reconstruction polarized white supremacy for the first time into a psychological force of massive national proportions.
More than 100 years of Jim Crow laws, lynchings and impoverishment were among the indignities forced upon American citizens only because they were Black
And since that time, bigotry has intensified and gotten louder even as some facets of this
Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, was a political refugee born in Havana to a Cuban Jewish father and a Romanian Jewish mother, who had survived the Holocaust.
After Mayorkas worked as an Assistant United States Attorney, he was appointed the United States attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles during the administration of President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, where he oversaw the prosecution of high-profile criminal cases. President Obama appointed him as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, where he implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process.
President-elect Joe Biden announced Mayorkas would lead homeland security in his Cabinet and his nomination was endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police and former DHS secretaries Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, and Jeh Johnson, before he was confirmed by the Senate on a 56–43 vote, with only Republican opposition.
The reluctance of Trump-era DHS leaders to endorse Mayorkas, who assumed leadership of the agency following a tumultuous period characterized by six different officials in four years, can be attributed to the legacy of scandals and controversies that plagued the Trump administration’s tenure.
Under the Trump administration, DHS became synonymous with scandal, as policies such as family separations, discriminatory bans, and politicized intelligence tarnished the agency’s reputation and betrayed American values. The prioritization of photo ops over national security, coupled with a legacy of incompetence and betrayal, eroded trust in the department and undermined its core values.
Trump’s DHS reign was a scandal-ridden house of cards, ripping families apart, politicizing intelligence, and erecting a “fake wall” while eroding trust, competence, and the department’s very core values.
The “fake wall” project and other misguided initiatives further exacerbated the situation, leaving DHS leaders skeptical of endorsing anyone who would inherit a department in disarray. From children forcibly separated from their parents to compromised national security summits, the Trump-era DHS left a trail of broken promises and shattered trust, casting a long shadow over national security and human decency.
Given this legacy of dysfunction and betrayal, it’s unsurprising that Trump’s DHS leaders were hesitant to honor traditions like changing of the guard. This legacy of broken promises was unprecedented and their betrayal cast a long shadow on national security and human decency.
Trump’s crucible of scandals, from prioritizing photo ops over national security to leaving a legacy of betrayal and incompetence that tarnished its humanity, competence, and national standing. DHS was scandalized with family separations, discriminatory bans, and politicized intelligence, betraying American values and leaving competence, reliability, and patriotism in tatters. From children ripped from parents to summits with election meddlers, the department’s legacy is one of broken promises and eroded trust.
“The tradition has been, understandably, that national security positions within the incoming administration are confirmed on the day of the Inauguration,” former George W. Bush DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who reprimanded partisan Republican opposition to a crucial national security office.
On November 9, 2023, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia filed a motion to impeach Mayorkas, citing a dereliction of duty and saying he “failed to maintain operational control of the border.”
“Every week in America, the same amount of Americans die that were killed in Israel by Hamas terrorists all because of Secretary Mayorkas’s bitter refusal to secure our Southern border, which he could easily do today,” said Greene. “The utter disregard for American life displayed by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas can no longer be ignored. The time for more hearings and phases is over.”
“Since assuming office, Secretary Mayorkas has aided and abetted the complete invasion of our country by deliberately flooding our nation with drugs, terrorists, and illegal aliens,” said Greene.
Greene has promoted antisemitic, white supremacist, and far-right conspiracy theories, including the white genocide conspiracy theory, QAnon, and Pizzagate. Other extremist conspiracy theories she has promoted include government involvement in mass shootings in the United States, baseless allegations of murder against the Clinton family, and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Before running for Congress, Greene supported calls to execute prominent Democratic Party politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
As a congresswoman, Greene equated the Democratic Party with Nazis, and compared COVID-19 safety measures to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, later apologizing for this comparison.
Greene identifies herself as a Christian nationalist, the neofascist movement of which Russian President Vladimir Putin has been described as a global leader. During the invasion of Ukraine, Greene promoted Russian propaganda and praised Putin.
House lawmakers blocked Greene’s first effort to impeach Mayorkas earlier in November, instead voting to send the resolution to the Homeland Security Committee.
The crackpot congresswoman from Georgia renewed her effort with a measure that required a vote and after several roadblocks, the GOP majority accommodated her.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democrat who led the January 6 investigation, called the impeachment effort a “political stunt.”
“Apparently, their baseless, so-called ‘investigation’ was just a shell game to justify a pre-determined, evidence-free impeachment over policy differences rather than any Constitutional grounds,” he said in a statement.
The House of Representatives failed to impeach Mayorkas with 216 voting against and 214 voting in favor because Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, was absent due to being treated for cancer although Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas cast his ‘no’ vote while wearing hospital scrubs because he had just finished abdominal surgery.
Three Republican members –Reps. Ken Buck, Mike Gallagher, Tom McClintock–broke party ranks on February 6, 2024, by voting against the impeachment and Rep. Blake Moore changed his vote to ‘no’ to allow Republicans to vote again as part of a motion to reconsider.
On February 13, 2024, the House voted 214–213 to impeach Mayorkas although Buck, Gallagher, and McClintock again opposed the effort by their conference but Democratic Rep. Judy Chu missed the vote due to contracting COVID-19, while three Florida representatives experienced flight delays: Republican Brian Mast, Republican María Salazar, and Democrat Lois Frankel.
Constitutional legal scholars asserted Republicans were using impeachment to address immigration policy disputes rather than for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which there was no evidence.
Doris Meissner, a former Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to the Department of Homeland Security, argued “This really is about policy differences and politics. These arguments that he’s violated the law and violated court orders are a smokescreen.”
Legal scholar and law professor Jonathan Turley commented that the impeachment lacked a “cognizable basis” and that the inquiry had failed to show “conduct by the secretary that could be viewed as criminal or impeachable”.
Frank Bowman of the University of Missouri School of Law, said “Put simply, on one hand, even if successfully impeaching and removing a Cabinet officer could change the policy of a presidential administration, using impeachment for that purpose would be contrary to America’s constitutional design.”
Former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, a Republican, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that “Republicans in the House should drop this impeachment charade and work with Mr. Mayorkas to deliver for the American people.”
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote an editorial opposing the impeachment, arguing “impeaching Mr. Mayorkas won’t change enforcement policy and is a bad precedent that will open the gates to more cabinet impeachments by both parties,” adding “a policy dispute doesn’t qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor.”
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN variously characterized the first, failed vote as a “stunning rebuke,” a “calamitous miscalculation,” and a “story of a House in utter disarray.”