If the U.S. House of Representatives follows through on this week’s committee recommendation and impeaches Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, it will be the first time in American history that a sitting Cabinet officer has been impeached. But Mayorkas is not as lonely as all that.
Republicans have also filed articles of impeachment against his boss, President Joe Biden, as well as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, while threatening them against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
Indeed, threats of impeachment have become a favorite pastime for Republicans following the lead of former President Donald Trump, who has pressed his allies for payback for his own two impeachments while in office. The chances of Mayorkas, much less Biden, ever being convicted in the Senate, absent some shocking revelation, seem to be just about zero, and the others appear in no serious danger even of being formally accused by the House.