| | | | |  | | By Catherine Kim | |  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies on his agency's fiscal year 2025 budget request during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on April 16, 2024. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | OVER BEFORE IT STARTED — After just a day of deliberation, the Democratic-controlled Senate voted today to deem both articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas unconstitutional — cutting the trial short without any votes to convict or acquit. The Republican-controlled House had voted to impeach Mayorkas in February, making him the first cabinet secretary to be impeached in nearly 150 years. The Senate vote marks the end of one of Congress’ more nakedly political enterprises, an impeachment that many constitutional scholars have criticized for failing to reach the bar of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” set by the Constitution. The issue at the heart of the debate has always been a serious one: 78 percent of Americans believe that the number of migrants seeking to enter the United States is either a “crisis” or a “major problem,” according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. But the pursuit of impeachment resembled an act of political theater, since the heart of the matter has always been a policy dispute, not an impeachable offense. To understand the implications of the impeachment attempt and the political fallout, Nightly called up Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor and the author of The Law of Presidential Impeachment, who has participated as a witness in impeachment proceedings against both former President Bill Clinton and former President Donald Trump. Gerhardt has been a vocal critic of Mayorkas’ impeachment and has long warned against the politicization of these procedures. We discussed how this trial fits into the history of weaponized impeachment trials. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What is your general assessment of the Mayorkas impeachment? How sound are the arguments made against him? The impeachment was transparently partisan. And the arguments in support of his impeachment are weak at best and obviously designed to embarrass or hurt the president politically. It’s about as trivial as an impeachment can get because it’s well-established — and I think constitutional scholars all across the spectrum would agree — that an impeachment based on policy differences is illegitimate. That is not what the process was designed to address. The impeachment was designed to put President Biden’s immigration policies on trial. That’s what an election is for. An impeachment is not for that. It’s no coincidence that Secretary Mayorkas is impeached during a presidential election year. And it’s no coincidence that Republicans would like to have a trial in the Senate in a presidential election year. And that’s because all of this effort to impeach Secretary Mayorkas is really designed to help Donald Trump and to hurt Joe Biden’s re-election. What are the political consequences of the impeachment trial against Mayorkas? Well, the first thing is, it creates a really bad precedent. It’s been well over 100 years since we’ve had an impeachment that had been based on policy differences. And that was the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, which resulted in his acquittal. So it’s a terrible precedent for the House to do something that is plainly unconstitutional, and purely and transparently partisan. Secondly, it’s a waste of resources. It’s a waste of the House’s time. It’s a waste of the Senate’s time. It’s a waste of precious resources. And third, it may just demonstrate how impoverished the Republican leadership in Congress is when it comes to undertaking legislative action. There are no bills that they favor. There’s no legislation that they’re proposing, but they want to waste everybody’s time by having an impeachment that’s solely for the purpose of helping Donald Trump win back the presidency. There are certain GOP lawmakers who will certainly oppose the quick end to the trial — very vocally. Well, it’s a reminder of the old adage that lawyers sometimes use, which is: If the law’s on your side, argue the law. If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are not on your side, pound the table. And so what’s happening is, with some Republican lawmakers, they’re just pounding the table and shouting. That does not make for a constitutional case. It just embarrasses Congress. Is there any way we can reverse the politicization of the impeachment process? Starting in the early 20th century, congressional hearings became public. And I think as Justice Louis Brandeis once said, sunlight is the best disinfectant. By which I think he meant that just putting a spotlight on some things such as transparently partisan actions, helps the American people hold the members who are sort of responsible for that embarrassment. It’s obvious that it’s purely partisan. The Senate had approved a bipartisan immigration bill that, in fact, gave Republicans almost everything they wanted when it came to fortifying immigration policy. And the speaker of the House Mike Johnson said, well, that’s dead on arrival. The only reason that it’s dead on arrival is because Donald Trump had asked Johnson and his fellow Republicans to kill it because they didn’t want to give Biden a win. That speaks really poorly of the legislative process and just demonstrates that people are putting party ahead of country. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at ckim@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ck_525.
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | | | GOING DARK — If you see Donald Trump back out on the campaign trail today, it doesn’t mean he’s skipping court. Trump’s first criminal trial, which began Monday in Manhattan criminal court, typically won’t take place on Wednesdays for the duration of the proceedings, which are expected to last around six weeks. Justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the trial, uses Wednesdays to attend to the business of other cases he is handling, and said he won’t hold proceedings those days unless there are “excessive delays” in the Trump case. Judges often set aside one day of the week during trials to work on other matters.
| | — Trump could have helped response to Jan. 6 riot — but didn’t — per new testimony: Donald Trump could have cleared up confusion and hastened the arrival of National Guard troops to quell the Capitol riot if he’d called Pentagon leaders on Jan. 6, 2021, according to recent closed-door congressional testimony by two former leaders of the D.C. guard. Michael Brooks, the senior enlisted leader of the D.C. guard at the time of the riot, and Brigadier Gen. Aaron Dean, the adjutant general of the D.C. guard at the time, told House Administration Committee staffers that if Trump had reached out that day — which, by all accounts, he did not — he might have helped cut through the chaos amid a tangle of conflicting advice and miscommunication. — Biden moves to reimpose oil sanctions on Venezuela: The Biden administration is moving to reimpose oil sanctions on Venezuela, citing a failure of President Nicolás Maduro’s regime to live up to commitments to holding free and fair elections this year. The Treasury Department will allow temporary sanctions relief for the South American country’s oil and gas sector to expire this week and won’t seek a renewal, senior administration officials said today. Officials said the Biden administration determined that Maduro’s government reneged on key parts of a deal reached last year that offered a temporary easing of sanctions in exchange for promises of democratic reforms. — Dems signal they’re open to helping Johnson on foreign aid as conservatives revolt: House Democrats are still digesting Speaker Mike Johnson’s four-part foreign aid plan, but are signaling they’re open to helping him move it. Without Democratic help, the separate aid bills for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — which together closely mirror a bipartisan, Senate-passed foreign aid bill — have no chance at even coming up for a vote. Johnson has said he’ll move the package through the regular process, meaning it has to leap over two major hurdles before passage: the Rules Committee and a procedural vote on the floor. If all three conservatives on the Rules panel unite with Democrats to oppose it, the bills won’t make it to the floor. And even if the bundle of bills does get through that committee, enough Republicans have already signaled they’ll tank the so-called rule vote on the floor, which would block all four bills.
| | | BIDEN ON THE ALABAMA BALLOT — Alabama lawmakers advanced legislation today to ensure President Joe Biden will appear on the state’s November ballot, mirroring accommodations made four years ago for then-President Donald Trump, reports the Associated Press. Legislative committees in the Alabama House of Representatives and Senate approved identical bills that would push back the state’s certification deadline from 82 days to 74 days before the general election in order to accommodate the date of Democrats’ nominating convention. The bills now move to the full chambers. Alabama has one of the earliest candidate certification deadlines in the country which has caused difficulties for whichever political party has the later convention date that year. RAZING ARIZONA — Arizona’s GOP has an abortion problem. And that means Donald Trump has an Arizona problem, writes the Bulwark. Last Friday, following the Arizona Supreme Court’s reinstatement of an 1864 law criminalizing abortion, Trump called on the Republicans who control the legislature to strike down the statute. But that’s not an easy fix. Arizona Republicans have two-seat majorities in the state House and Senate. The overwhelming majority of the GOP caucus is either in favor of the 1864 law on the merits, or fear changing it would incur the wrath of social conservatives led by Cathi Herrod, the president of the Center for Arizona Policy. Herrod called on legislators to keep the 160-year-old law intact and make good on the promises many of them made in 2022 to stand by it. GIVE ME A CUT — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has found a new way to press for badly needed cash. In a letter received by Republican digital vendors this week, the Trump campaign is asking for down-ballot candidates who use his name, image and likeness in fundraising appeals to give at least 5 percent of the proceeds to the campaign.
| | |  Ukrainian soldiers fire a mortar toward Russian positions at the front line, near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Aug. 12, 2023. | Libkos/AP | LOW SPIRITS — Just ask a Ukrainian soldier if he still believes the West will stand by Kyiv “for as long as it takes.” That pledge rings hollow when it’s been four weeks since your artillery unit last had a shell to fire, as one serviceman complained from the front lines. It’s not just that Ukraine’s forces are running out of ammunition. Western delays over sending aid mean the country is dangerously short of something even harder to supply than shells: the fighting spirit required to win. Morale among troops is grim, ground down by relentless bombardment, a lack of advanced weapons, and losses on the battlefield. In cities hundreds of miles away from the front, the crowds of young men who lined up to join the army in the war’s early months have disappeared. Nowadays, eligible would-be recruits dodge the draft and spend their afternoons in nightclubs instead. Many have left the country altogether. As POLITICO EU discovered while reporting from Ukraine over the past month, the picture that emerged from dozens of interviews with political leaders, military officers, and ordinary citizens was one of a country slipping towards disaster. Even as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine is trying to find a way not to retreat, military officers privately accept that more losses are inevitable this summer. The only question is how bad they will be. Vladimir Putin has arguably never been closer to his goal. “We know people are flagging and we hear it from regional governors and from the people themselves,” Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, said. Yermak and his boss travel together to “some of the most dangerous places” to rally citizens and soldiers for the fight, he said. “We tell people: ‘Your name will be in the history books.’”
| | | | POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2024 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO will again be your eyes and ears at the 27th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles from May 5-8 with exclusive, daily, reporting in our Global Playbook newsletter. Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground covering the biggest moments, behind-the-scenes buzz and on-stage insights from global leaders in health, finance, tech, philanthropy and beyond. Get a front-row seat to where the most interesting minds and top global leaders confront the world’s most pressing and complex challenges — subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | | | | | WWOOF WWOOF — Are you young, broke and want to travel the world? Maybe you have an interest in sustainable living or farming? Then you’ve probably heard of WWOOFing, the colloquial term for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization founded in 1971 that partners people in search of adventure or just a place to live and eat with farms that need their labor. The idea is, you work for housing and food. And mostly, it works — people are paired with interesting farms around the world that can provide real adventure, delicious food and decent housing, though occasionally it doesn’t work out as promised. The mission of the organization, as Jaya Saxena writes for Eater, is to connect people to a different sort of life than they might experience otherwise. Even with farms around the world under threat, WWOOFing is going strong. But how long can this process sustain itself?
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On this date in 1989: Oil clean-up workers prepare to vacuum up crude oil on the shoreline of Block Island, Alaska. Efforts continued to clean up oil from the spill of the Exxon Valdez that occurred on March 24 of that year, with 11 million gallons of crude oil spilling into the water. | John Gaps III/AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
