Leave it to Republicans to fall short, either from nearsightedness, timidity, or both.  Case in point, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas.  Twenty House conservatives, led by the quixotic speaker-aspirant Andy Biggs (R-AZ), are calling for Mayorkas’ impeachment.  Their intentions are good, but their call is a little like calling for the arrest of Bonnie Parker but letting Clyde Barrow and his gang run free.  Bonnie was nothing without Clyde.    

From the New York Post, December 13:

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who introduced articles of impeachment against President Biden’s DHS chief last year, led the delegation of lawmakers at a press conference on Tuesday, making the legal case for how Mayorkas “has committed high crimes and misdemeanors” worthy of impeachment. 

Then this from the Post’s story:

“Secretary Mayorkas has released more than one million illegal aliens into the country,” Biggs said. “Most of these released illegal aliens will never be heard from again.”

That’s quite true, and should vex Americans who grasp that a nation without a border soon enough degenerates into a pre-civilizational free-for-all.  Juárez would appear civil by contrast. 

A nation that demolishes its borders isn’t going to be a nice place, thronging with tranquil, diverse peoples bartering hemp clothing for solar panel installations and windmill repairs.  It’ll be a land of warring tribes and factions. 

This “deconstruction” of the U.S.-Mexican border as a prelude to some glorious global utopia is the masturbatory indulgence of mostly affluent, white progressives… a conceited, powerful minority who, currently -- and, we hope, not much longer -- occupy the high ground, not only in government, but in a range of institutions – in the corporate media, prominently -- and who dominate the culture.  Among them, too, hard-eyed cynics, whose preoccupation is power acquisition for self-aggrandizement.  They see profit in exploiting the diaspora.    

It’s these elites who must stand accused in the court of public opinion of crimes against the American people… who lend not just their assent to the debauching of the southern border and, since January 2021, the ensuing deluge of an estimated 5.5 million illegals into the country, but whose voices, dollars, and institutional heft weigh heavily in this unprecedented assault on the nation’s integrity, security, and welfare.              

But, of course, it’s outside the scope of the soon-to-be House Republican majority to pursue that extra-governmental supporting cast.  It’s mostly up to us -- sensible, sober patriots -- to defeat those elites and their minions, pushing them to the margins.  No easy feat, but neither was defeating the British crown.

Congress is granted, via the Constitution, the right -- indeed, the duty -- to impeach and remove elected and appointed officials (and, intriguingly, “civil officers”) for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”  Says Cornell Law about high crimes and misdemeanors:

The type of behavior that qualifies as impeachable conduct, and the circumstances in which impeachment is an appropriate remedy for such actions, are thus determined by, among other things, competing political interests, changing institutional relationships among the three branches of government, and legislators' interaction with and accountability to the public. The weight of historical practice, rather than judicial precedent, is thus central to understanding the nature of impeachment in the United States.    

Clearly, it isn’t Mayorkas alone who’s responsible for the premeditated destruction of the U.S.-Mexican border.  To borrow loosely from the creepy Colonel Kurtz describing Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now, Mayorkas is “an errand boy…”  He does the biding of powerful personages in the Biden administration, starting with Chief of Staff Ron Klain and Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, whose ear belongs to shadowy Barack Obama. 

House Republicans -- if conservatives can ever muster a majority -- targeting Mayorkas solely for impeachment will miss the side of the barn.

Mayorkas isn’t a Biden administration rogue acting outside the administration’s chain-of-command, like a Kurtz.  Mayorkas is a cabinet officer in good standing, appointed by the president and acting in accord with the very deliberate, unspoken policies of the administration to open the U.S.-Mexican border to a torrent of illegals that will only grow worse with the end of Title 42.  Two more years of Biden’s wretched presidency ensures multiple millions more illegals crossing into the U.S.     

It’s worth emphasizing that the erasure of the southern border isn’t the result of Biden administration incompetence, which is generally assumed.  Democrats regard illegals as lifeblood.  The relationship is mutually parasitic.  Democrats feed off hordes of illegals, funneling them into mostly Hispanic communities. These millions will -- in time or more immediately through chicanery -- give their votes to Democrats, whose agenda is increasingly, brazenly anti-liberty, globalist, and downright anti-American.             

The indictment (articles of impeachment), then, can’t center on Mayorkas.  That would cruelly mislead Americans.  It creates the wrong optics and fails justice.  It dims the chances for effective accountability and meaningful change.   

Mayorkas, good errand boy he, impeached for the border fiasco, serves then as the administration’s fall guy.  He becomes the card that all eyes go to in an, albeit, unintended sleight of hand instigated by Republicans.  Eyes must be on the more guilty parties.      

The indictment must be far more ambitious, more comprehensive, painfully honest, and historically precedent-setting. 

The Biden administration must stand in the docket in the person of Joe Biden.  Biden, the oft-befuddled face, and not infrequently, gibbering mouthpiece, for his handlers, must be impeached.  He must be the indictment’s focus.

For House Republicans, who would prosecute Biden in a Senate trial, the chief articles of impeachment center on Biden’s policies.  1) That they’re meant to destroy the southern border, doing grave harm to the country, for political gain.  2) In pursuing political ends, Biden accepts as incidental untallied amounts of fentanyl, meth, and other killer drugs entering the U.S.  (Mexican cartels are the means, while ingredients are supplied, in part, by communist China.  Such has created an epidemic of drug deaths, particularly among American adults.)  3) Biden’s quest for greater political power allows criminal elements -- cartel soldiers and gangbangers, notably -- to infiltrate the U.S., harming citizens.  4) the deliberate influx of illegals places undue financial and other resource pressures on state and local governments and infrastructures.  That amounts to greater costs or stretched resources for police and fire protection, emergency medical services, housing, welfare, and schools, among other vital services.               

Yes, impeach Mayorkas.  He’s most certainly culpable.  He’s a tireless liar and lackey.  He’s played a pivotal role in the southern border debacle.  But he’s an errand boy, doubtlessly willing to take the tarnish for his overlords, knowing that his sacrifice will be amply rewarded by the establishment.    

With a Democrat Senate, and the threshold for removal being 67 votes, impeachment will not lead to Biden’s ouster -- or Mayorkas’ or that of any Biden administration official.

But the case for Biden’s removal for the purposeful degradation of the border (personal corruption charges could be woven in, too) will have been presented to the country, and done so compellingly.  Democrats’ intentions will have been laid bare.  In this instance, momentously, Republicans would have discharged their duties to the people.    

Frankly, though, it’ll take guts by House Republicans to pursue an aggressive impeachment strategy -- if impeachment occurs at all.  They would likely regard what’s recommended here as “elevating the conflict.”  But isn’t the conflict already elevated?  The risks to the country grow more profound daily.  Threats to our cohesion as a country, to our viability as one people, in fact, mount, and with a rapidity that will shortly astonish.  Greater perils will be upon us sooner than we imagine. 

It’s high time for Republicans to stop pulling punches, to jettison half measures.  It’s time to accept the fight that’s been thrust upon us… and, before it’s too late, fight with a single-minded determination to win.   

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.  He’s just returned to Twitter.  His Twitter handle is @JRobertSmith1.   

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