The One Good Thing
The one good thing to come out of the U.S. House impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week is that a dark chapter in Iowa history may fade a little more from view.
As we’ve told you in an “Iowa Almanac” story, the last time a Cabinet member was impeached was back in 1876, when U.S. Secretary of War William Belknap was implicated in a trading scandal. Belknap gave President U.S. Grant his resignation letter, but that did not stop the House from impeaching him anyway. He was acquitted after a trial to the Senate, because Senators did not believe they could convict and toss from office someone who had already resigned…and they were probably right.
So for 148 years, the answer to the question, “who was the last Cabinet member impeached” was “William Belknap from Iowa”—now, thanks to the GOP majority in the U.S. House, it’s Mayorkas.
I concede that I’m really not sure what difference it made, since Mayorkas was simply carrying out Biden Administration policy. If impeaching the Secretary would lead to a change in policy, then fine; but if anything, the Administration is going to double down on its failed and dangerous policy. There’s no way the Senate will convict him at trial, either. So all the time this took, all the political capital spent on a doomed effort—I’m just not sure that was a good use of time and resources, given everything else on the table and given what actual impact the impeachment would have.
To be clear, I think the Administration has a dreadful policy that could lead to devastating consequences. But to waste time impeaching a person for following his boss’ orders…I’m not sure that’s done anything but play into Democrat narrative about this is only about Republicans looking for retribution.
And the spiral of precedence, the “you did it to us so we’re doing it to you” approach, continues…all the while, serving the American people fades further into the background.
