GOP Rep. Suggests Impeaching DHS Secretary Because Slavery Exists, Drugs Kill People

WASHINGTON ― Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas) suggested Wednesday that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached because slavery exists in the world and fentanyl is killing people ― a claim that law professor Frank Bowman, a witness in this House hearing, had to keep informing the congressman made no sense.

Both were participants in a House Homeland Security Committee hearing focused on impeaching Mayorkas. The hearing, which went on for nearly five hours, was a political stunt: Republicans are eager to make the migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border a major liability for President Joe Biden in the 2024 elections. Mayorkas is their latest target.

The problem with the GOP’s impeachment effort is that Mayorkas, a cabinet secretary charged with carrying out immigration laws, as broken as they may be, has not been accused of any crimes. Never mind the kinds of serious “high crimes and misdemeanors” that meet the constitutional threshold for impeachment, like treason or bribery.

Nonetheless, the GOP’s rationale is that because Mayorkas is overseeing Biden’s border policies, he is responsible for the egregious crimes that people commit at the border and elsewhere, so he should be impeached.

Luttrell leaned hard into that rationale on Wednesday, trying to pin blame on the homeland security secretary for crimes carried out by others.

“Can you give me the definition of a ‘high crime and misdemeanor?’” the Texas Republican asked Bowman, who is a professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri School of Law, and a former federal prosecutor.

Bowman said there’s no single definition that will satisfy everyone, but that the late constitutional scholar, Charles Black, would define it as