Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) will begin pursuing two articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week — allegations of breaching public trust and purposefully ignoring the law.
Green’s committee will mark up both articles on Tuesday. Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he will hold a floor vote “as soon as possible.”
The political stakes here are huge, as we’ve been saying for months. There hasn’t been an impeachment of a Cabinet official in nearly 150 years, and that one failed.
Also, Johnson is working with President Donald Trump to derail a bipartisan Senate border security and immigration package that could have a huge impact on the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Mayorkas has been involved in those talks.
So House Republicans want to remove the Cabinet official charged with overseeing border security even as they’re already rejecting a bipartisan Senate border security bill that they haven’t seen yet? This is an interesting campaign year position at the very least.
The first impeachment article accuses Mayorkas of “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” The second says the secretary breached public trust by “knowingly” making false statements and obstructing lawful oversight of the DHS.
“These articles lay out a clear, compelling, and irrefutable case for Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment,” Green said in a statement Sunday. “These facts are beyond dispute, and the results of his lawless behavior have been disastrous for our country.”
The markup Tuesday will likely be heated, with Democrats calling Green’s efforts a politically-motivated sham. The panel held only two impeachment hearings, with an ongoing dispute between Republicans and Mayorkas over whether he could testify.
The DHS released a memo Sunday at the same time Green announced his impeachment plans. The memo asserts that Mayorkas hasn’t engaged in any high crimes or misdemeanors that warrant an impeachment.
“This markup is just more of the same political games from House Homeland Security Committee (CHS) Republicans,” the memo asserts. “They don’t want to fix the problem; they want to campaign on it.”
A handful of House Republicans, including Reps. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) have expressed concerns about impeaching Mayorkas, saying the crisis at the border doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Johnson can only lose two Republicans on this party-line vote if all members are present and voting. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is still out for cancer treatment.
– Mica Soellner
