The Constitution wins
And with a tie House vote of 215-215 on the phony articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that “The resolution is not adopted,” ending a farce and avoiding a serious constitutional error.
What saved the Congress from an unjustified impeachment charade was not any good sense on behalf of Johnson or his deluded, Trump-infected Republican conference, but three GOP congressmen who broke from the pack and did right by the Constitution and the country.
Tom McClintock of California, Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin and Colorado’s Ken Buck (who is not running for reelection) upheld their oath of office and refused to go along with the nutso plan of crackpot Marjorie Taylor Greene that Mayorkas had somehow committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Had the impeachment articles been adopted, Greene would have been one of House managers arguing for a conviction in a Senate trial, where the Democrats have the majority and the case would have been laughed at by the jury of senators. Greene would probably make Trump’s inept lawyers in his various cases look like legal giants.
McClintock, Gallagher and Buck don’t like Mayorkas any more than their House colleagues do, as his handling of the complicated issues of the border and immigration puts them in a rage and serves as a handy political weapon in an election year (see how the House GOP and Trump are trashing the Senate’s bipartisan border bill).
But this brave trio are alone among their party in understanding that a difference of policy or implementation, or even style, are not crimes warranting a removal from office.
We are profoundly disappointed that there were only three out of 218 who see that. None of the supposed moderates or mainstream Republicans from New York, like freshmen Nick LaLota, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams, had the guts or the backbone to act with honor. They all lined up with Greene.
The 219th Republican, Steve Scalise, the GOP’s No. 2, was the only member missing from yesterday’s vote. He has a good reason, as he is being treated for blood cancer. We wish him well and lament that there’s no treatment for the ailment most of his associates are afflicted with.
When the results showed that impeachment was sure to fail on the tie 215-215 vote, one of the pro-impeachment members, Blake Moore of Utah, switched his position at the last moment. That changed the final tally to 214-216, but permitted Moore, now on the prevailing side, to make a motion to reconsider and have a do-over. Johnson used his gavel to put off that second Mayorkas vote to another time. A time that should not happen.
We recommend that Johnson and his conference brush up on the Constitution and impeachment and a useful primer is the unanimous federal appeals court ruling that came out yesterday against Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution. The court carefully examined the role of impeachment.
Remember, getting Mayorkas was just a test run. The real target of Greene and the other kooks is impeaching President Biden for something or other. Please, let them stop. Campaign against Biden this fall, but don’t try another impeachment.
Johnson lost, and we are lucky that he did. Don’t push that luck.