The House could impeach Secretary Mayorkas, the second time ever for a Cabinet member
House Republicans are moving forward with plans to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who would be the second Cabinet member ever impeached.
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are moving forward with plans to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with a committee vote set for Tuesday morning and Speaker Mike Johnson promising a full vote of the House soon after.
If the House does impeach Mayorkas, requiring just a majority vote, the issue would head to the Senate to begin a trial. It would be only the second impeachment ever of a Cabinet secretary and the first since 1876.
While it has been 148 years since the last successful impeachment of a Cabinet member, there have been several failed attempts in that time. Opening an impeachment investigation into a Cabinet member of the opposing party has become especially common in the past two decades.
On March 2, 1876, Rep. Hiester Clymer, D-Pa., rose to speak on the House floor. Clymer, who chaired the Committee on Expenditures in the War Department, said his panel had uncovered “official corruption and crimes such as has no parallel in our own history, or, so far as I know, that of any other country.”
The man at fault, said Clymer, was William Belknap, who was war secretary in President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration. This was the Gilded Age, and Belknap was known for “extravagant Washington parties,” which raised questions, seeing as he was on a government salary.
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