An impeachment trial is supposed to be a big deal. The trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was anything but. It wasn’t just that it was perhaps the fifth (sixth?) biggest news story in American politics this week (and a far less sensational trial than that of the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump). There was somehow no sense of history or gravitas for what was notionally a momentous occasion—the first impeachment trial of a sitting Cabinet member in American history. Instead, it played out like something else entirely.

The impeachment of Mayorkas originated as a way to appease the unruly House Republicans who approached this Congress with a small majority but a huge appetite for partisan warfare. After going through 15 ballots to first elect Kevin McCarthy in January 2023 and then spending over three weeks in legislative limbo without a speaker after ousting McCarthy in October, an impeachment of the homeland security secretary was an easy way for McCarthy’s replacement, Rep. Mike Johnson, to appease his right. After all, the impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden had come up with little evidence of malfeasance and was far too politically risky. Instead, with the Biden administration struggling to manage a border crisis, Mayorkas made a sufficient substitute. It took multiple votes to do so but eventually the homeland security secretary was impeached by the House in February.

But then House Republicans delayed in sending the impeachment articles to the Senate for nearly two months. And clearly, some of the air was let out of the tires. In that time, their slender majority shrank even further due to resignations, and Johnson became preoccupied with the threat of ouster from Marjorie Taylor Greene (who was also the author of the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas) and began struggling to balance his gavel against the urgent need to send aid to Israel and Ukraine.That drama was coming to a boil on Tuesday when the articles of impeachment were formally transmitted to the Senate.

Still, once they were submitted, the designated 11 impeachment managers led by Mark Green, the chairman of Homeland Security Committee, took part in a solemn........

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