Like Lemmings to the Sea Republicans Follow Democrats Off the Cliff with Mayorkas Impeachment January 31, 2024 Vol. XVII, No. 1 2:13 pm Partisan Impeachments are a Fool’s Errand Last night, just after midnight, 18 Republicans and 0 Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee voted to advance two articles of impeachment against
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Like Lemmings to the Sea Republicans Follow Democrats Off the Cliff with Mayorkas Impeachment
January 31, 2024 Vol. XVII, No. 1 2:13 pm
Partisan Impeachments are a Fool’s Errand
Last night, just after midnight, 18 Republicans and 0 Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee voted to advance two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him of “breach of trust” and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” And just like that, a fool’s errand of another partisan impeachment began.
If there is any doubt of the foolishness of a partisan impeachment, look no further than this day four years ago, in January 2020, when the entire nation was engrossed in the first impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Although Trump was the third president to be impeached (Andrew Johnson, 1868; Bill Clinton, 1999), he was the first to be impeached solely along partisan lines.
When Rep. Al Green, D-TX, and a growing number of House Democrats began to push for Trump’s impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, pushed back. “Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country,” she told The Washington Post. On a partisan impeachment Pelosi said in an interview with CNBC, “Many people would think it’s being done for political reasons.”
But angry Democrats bent on taking Trump down at any cost persisted. Rep. Al Green, D-TX, said the quiet part out loud during a July 2019 interview with NBC News, “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get reelected.”
In September 2019, Speaker Pelosi relented. It was a big mistake.
Zero Republican Support for Articles of Impeachment
In December 2019, there were four votes in the US House on the two articles of impeachment, Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. Not one single Republican voted with the Democrats either in committee or on the floor.
The US House Judiciary Committee voted twice on December 13, 2019, once for each of the two articles of impeachment. The result both times was 23 Democrats and 0 Republicans.
Then, on December 18, 2019, the full House voted to approve the two articles of impeachment. The vote on Article 1, Abuse of Power, was 229 “Yea” and 197 “Nay.” The total number of Republicans voting “Yea,” was 0. The vote on Article 2, Obstruction of Congress, was 228 “Yea” and 198 “Nay.” The total number of Republicans voting “Yea,” was 0.
By way of contrast, in 1998, 31 US House Democrats voted with the US House Republican majority for the impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Clinton’s trial ended with ten Republican Senators joining 45 Democratic senators in voting Clinton “Not Guilty.” That’s bipartisan consensus.
In 1974, the US House voted 410-4 for an impeachment inquiry against President Richard Nixon over the Watergate Scandal. That’s 242 Democrats and 188 of 192 Republicans. Bipartisan consensus is why Nixon resigned.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right when she warned her caucus that unless there was something “compelling and bipartisan” that they should not go down the impeachment path.
Only One of 53 Republican Senators Voted “Guilty”
In January 2020, Democrats went to trial against President Trump in the US Senate needing 20 Republican Senators to vote with the 47 Democrats to reach the required 67 for a conviction.
The chief prosecutor was Rep. Adam Schiff, D-CA, lead impeachment manager. His pleas were impassioned. Do the right thing. For the sake of the country. When the vote was counted, only Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT voted with the Democrats. Schiff’s vindictive anger and fatal egotistical assessment of his persuasive skills were unmasked. The fool’s errand of a partisan impeachment revealed.
Rep. Adam Schiff, as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is the same representative who wrongly insisted that then-President Trump was guilty of collusion with the Russians during the 2016 campaign for president. “You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence,” Schiff said to Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
It’s no wonder Rep. Adam Schiff was censured by the US House on June 21, 2023 for abusing his trust by spreading false allegations, behaving dishonestly and dishonorably, lying and distorting the facts regarding the Russian Collusion debacle and President Trump’s first impeachment.
The only political consequence of the impeachment trial turned out to be good for the embattled President. Per Gallup polling conducted during the heat of the trial (January 16 to 29), Trump’s job approval had “risen to 49%, his highest in Gallup polling since he took office in 2017.” The poll also found that 52% of Americans favored acquitting Trump, to only 46% in favor of convicting and removing him from office. (Trump lost reelection due to Covid and losing suburban women who were turned off by his foul-mouth and his narcissistic tantrums, not because of the partisan impeachment.)
By the time President Trump delivered his third State of the Union address on February 4, 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so infuriated that she ripped her copy of the speech as she stood behind the President. She had struck out. No Russian collusion. No obstruction. No impeachment conviction.
The next day, February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted President Trump on both articles of impeachment. It was a partisan impeachment from the start.
Hopefully, GOP Speaker Mike Johnson will remember Democrat Speaker Pelosi’s fool’s errand of a partisan impeachment in 2020 and can stop the misguided members of the Republican caucus from making the same mistake with the Mayorkas Impeachment of 2024.
Otherwise, like lemmings to the sea, House Republicans will tumble off the same political cliff Democrats found themselves at the bottom of after their disastrous Trump impeachment of 2020.
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John N. Davis
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