How is the Biden White House handling the historic impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the first impeachment of a Cabinet Secretary in over a century and a half? Not with introspection and understanding about why the GOP might be upset with the border policies under Mayorkas, but with fire and fury about the “baseless” nature of the impeachment.
That came when Josh Wingrove, White House reporter for Bloomberg, asked about the impeachment and whether the Senate, controlled by Democrats, would be able to dismiss it quickly. Wingrove asked, “First, is the White House confident that the Democratic-led Senate can and will move quickly to dismiss the impeachment case against Secretary Mayorkas?“
Responding, KJP first referenced the White House statement on the matter, saying, “So, look, here’s what I can say. And you saw the President’s statement yesterday, last night, on — on what occurred in the House. And we’ve been very clear about how we feel about what’s occurring on the House.”
Continuing, she then fired off the statement that “history…will not look kindly” on the GOP for the impeachment and claimed that it was “unconstitutional,” saying, “I do want to just — I know we — we’ve gotten these questions a couple of times. I do want to say that the President did connect with Secretary Mayorkas earlier today, and they — and you saw the President’s statement last night, which said that, you know, history will not — will not look kindly on House Republicans for this blatant act of what we believe to be unconstitutional — unconstitutional bipartisanship [partisanship].”
Adding to that, she kept up the fire and fury routine, describing the impeachment as “baseless” and “shameful,” saying, “And so, we believe that what occurred last night is b- — is — is baseless. It’s shameful. We have to remember this is a — this is a Secretary who worked really hard with the Senate to try to get that bipartisan agreement with — obviously, with Republicans and Democrats when it — as it — as it relates to the border security.”
She then turned to defending the shot-down Senate border deal, saying, “And we believe if that had been put into place, if we hadn’t — if it had been moved forward, it would have been the tough — yes, the toughest, but also the fairest piece — piece of legislation, obviously, would have been into law that would have dealt with a broken immigration system, beginning to deal with that, and, obviously, the challenges that we see at the border. And it’s unfortunate that — that House Republicans prioritize politics instead of actually getting that done.”
Then KJP returned to the actual question, saying that she wouldn’t comment on the workings of the Senate. In her words: “I’m certainly not going to speak to the process of the Senate. The Senate is going to move forward in whatever — in whatever way that they will. But we’ve been really, really, really clear that what we saw — that the vote coming out of House Republicans — they would rather play politics instead of doing their jobs.”
Concluding, she described the situation as “unfortunate” and referenced the GOP’s first, failed attempt to impeach Mayorkas. She said, “And we saw bipartisan support against the impeachment just last week. And so, it is unfortunate that this occurred. It is truly unfortunate. And so, I’m just going to leave it there for now.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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