House committee gives first approval to Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment

The House Homeland Security Committee gave initial approval Wednesday morning of articles on impeachment against Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, saying his mismanagement of the border should make him the first sitting Cabinet member ever to be impeached.

The two articles of impeachment passed the panel on a party-line 18-15 vote just after 1 a.m.

Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled he wants a quick floor vote to follow, and Republicans said the eventual outcome is certain.

“We’re going to impeach him because he has broken the law,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican. “He has violated his oath of office. He is breaking federal immigration law. Americans are dying. It’s the No. 1 issue all over the country.”

Democrats acknowledged they have little chance of derailing the impeachment in the full House, and spent much of the day laying the groundwork for Mr. Mayorkas’ defense when the matter moves to the Senate.

They accused Republicans of using impeachment to try to scuttle the ongoing bipartisan negotiations in the Senate over border security, saying the GOP is trying to deliver a political issue to former President Donald Trump in his looming election rematch with President Biden.

Democrats tried to rewrite the articles of impeachment into attacks on Mr. Trump, but those efforts were shot down by Republicans, who said the issue wasn’t the upcoming elections but rather the last three years of Mr. Mayorkas’ handling of the border.

Democrats complained that amounted to shutting out their voices.

“Shutting down debate on obviously deficient — and baseless — impeachment articles is an act of cowards, plain and simple,” said Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the panel. “As I said earlier, history will judge what Republicans did today, and it won’t be favorably. There is no way this passes constitutional muster.”