The politics of the Mayorkas impeachment trial [View all]

Analysis by Aaron Blake
April 17, 2024 at 6:18 p.m. EDT

In early February, congressional Republicans ... decided to kill a bipartisan Senate deal that included tough border security measures. Instead, they pressed forward with ... a messaging exercise: impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

... Even by the accounts of several Republicans, their party preferred attacking the Biden administration over the crisis at the border to actually doing something about it.

Two months later, Mayorkas’s impeachment is dead ...

... the GOP’s impeachment effort was troubled from the start ... Even many Republicans said Mayorkas’s actions weren’t impeachable ...

The ... GOP defections undersell just how much concern there was about what their party was doing ...

One called it “the worst, dumbest exercise and use of time.” Another said the House GOP was “targeting a member of the administration without doing their homework.” A third said the House had “nothing” ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/17/politics-swiftly-dismissed-mayorkas-impeachment-trial/