https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-30-2024
"Today, according to Clare Foran, Manu Raju, and Morgan Rimmer of CNN, House
speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told his Republican colleagues that he will not
bring forward the bipartisan immigration bill senators have been working on for
months, calling it “absolutely dead.”
Although Johnson insisted in November that border security was so crucial that
he wouldn’t bring up aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and Gaza until such
legislation was attached to it, Trump has made it clear he wants immigration
and border security left on the table for him to use as an issue in his run for
the presidency.
Instead of addressing border security through legislation, House Republicans
instead are moving forward with their plan to impeach Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They wrote articles of impeachment even before
holding hearings. Today, members of the House Homeland Security Committee held
a hearing to mark up those articles, which claim that Mayorkas committed high
crimes and misdemeanors because he allegedly breached the public trust and
refused to enforce immigration law.
In all our history, only one cabinet officer has been impeached. William
Belknap, whose eight years as secretary of war under President U. S. Grant had
been marked by ostentatious displays of wealth and apparent kickbacks from army
contracts, was charged with corruption in March 1876 just hours after he
tearfully handed Grant his resignation.
The House charged Belknap with “criminally disregarding his duty as Secretary
of War and basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.”
The Senate agreed that it had jurisdiction to hold an impeachment trial even
for a former government official, for an officer should not be able to escape
justice simply by resigning. After hearing more than 40 witnesses, a majority
of senators voted to convict Belknap on each of five charges, but no vote
reached the necessary two-thirds threshold for conviction, and he was therefore
acquitted.
Almost 150 years later, the impeachment of Mayorkas would be the second effort
to impeach a cabinet member. Yet there is no suggestion that Mayorkas has done
anything but try to implement the law, even as the administration has
repeatedly asked for more funding to make it possible for him to do his job."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
