The White House released a prepared statement from President Joe Biden on the occasion this week of the House’s slim GOP majority approving an impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans have made developments at the southern border a rallying cry for their party as this year’s elections approach — but many in the GOP have also rejected recent opportunities for action actually presented. That list includes $14 billion in funding oriented around border security that the Biden administration proposed and a bipartisan proposal in the Senate that would have established serious, sweeping reforms in border policy. Proposed changes included new powers for the federal government to close the southern border between ports of entry in periods of particularly high strain.
The impeachment tees up an impeachment trial in the Senate that almost certainly will result in an acquittal. Mayorkas, in other words, is looking at a continued stint fulfilling his homeland security responsibilities while Republicans do… whatever this is.
“History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games,” Biden’s statement asserted, adding: “This impeachment already failed once on a bipartisan vote. Instead of staging political stunts like this, Republicans with genuine concerns about the border should want Congress to deliver more border resources and stronger border security. Sadly, the same Republicans pushing this baseless impeachment are rejecting bipartisan plans Secretary Mayorkas and others in my administration have worked hard on to strengthen border security at this very moment.”
House Republicans have also been conducting an impeachment inquiry targeting the president himself. Recently, those investigative efforts have included a series of interviews done by the House Oversight Committee — none of which have conclusively tied the president to ostensible corruption that’s also a subject of the probe involving various business activities of family members of his, including adult son Hunter Biden.
