Staffers behind Mayorkas impeachment outed as veterans of Christian nationalist groups

05 March 2024

The impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is likely to begin in the US Senate this week. It is expected to be quickly tabled or dismissed by Democrats, who hold the majority and have criticized House Republicans for bringing the case to trial despite a lack of "high crimes and misdemeanors" the Constitution requires to necessitate impeachment.

Both Senate Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Mayorkas impeachment as a political stunt. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) said his Republican counterparts in the House of Representatives were engaging in the "worst, dumbest exercise and use of time" for an impeachment that was "obviously dead on arrival." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) dismissed it as "political theater from a Republican Party that can't do any real legislative work."

And as if to underscore that point, one journalist has exposed the staffers who authored the articles of impeachment as seasoned veterans of far-right, Christian nationalist groups.

In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), Jonathan Larsen — who most recently worked for The Young Turks and MSNBC — tweeted multiple pieces of evidence tying the staffers who steered impeachment efforts to several prominent Christian right groups he described as having a "theocratic" agenda. He noted that the leaders of these groups have "used lies to dispatch political foes," like Mayorkas.

Stephen Siao, who is the staff director of the GOP-controlled House Homeland Security Committee, is also the chief of staff for Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), who chairs the committee. Larsen found that Siao is the former grassroots director of Heritage Action (the political arm of the far-right Heritage Foundation, which is behind the controversial Project 2025 campaign). He has additional experience with Hillsdale College — led by board chairman Pat Sajak of Wheel of Fortune fame — which is one of the leading organizations behind the evangelical right's crusade against LGBTQ+ rights. Siao also began his DC career at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has played an influential role in numerous Supreme Court decisions benefiting the religious right — like the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores case in which corporations were given a "religious exemption" for denying employees' contraception care.

Siao is also a member of the Council for National Policy (CNP). As Larsen reported, CNP executive director Bob McEwen is a member of the secretive far-right organization The Family (also known as The Fellowship), which is the primary organizer of the annual National Prayer Breakfast. That organization was notably a prominent backer of Uganda's legislation to implement the death penalty for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

According to Larsen, both Siao and his own deputy recently attended educational sessions hosted by the Faith & Law Project. Larsen tweeted a description of the Faith & Law's 2022 conference, in which the organization sought to help "thought leaders and policymakers" apply a "Biblical worldview" to their "public square vocation." That conference was entitled "Christian Faithfulness in Public Service: Essential characteristics of a Christ-follower on Capitol Hill." Larsen also tweeted a statement from a female staffer on Green's committee, who wrote that she "frequently ask[s]" how her "personal faith should influence" her legislative work, and that the Faith & Law retreat would help her "answer that question."

The ideology of Christian nationalism asserts that the United States was founded as a Christian nation (many of the founding fathers were actually Deists) and that public policy should be crafted for the explicit promotion of Christianity. A 2023 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that more than half of Republicans polled said they wanted the US to be an explicitly Christian nation.

After he was officially elected as Speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) invited anyone curious about his politics to "go pick up a Bible." He also said that the separation of church and state was a "misnomer" in a CNBC interview.

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