8 Republicans Tank Motion To Impeach Mayorkas

As House Republican efforts to impeach President Joe Biden remain mired in uncertainty, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) recently offered a direct route to the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In the end, however, a handful of fellow Republicans doomed the resolution against a Biden administration official who has long faced criticism for his failure to secure the nation’s southern border.

A total of eight Republicans — Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio, Cliff Bentz of Oregon, Ken Buck of Colorado, Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry, both of North Carolina, and Darrell Issa, Tom McClintock and John Duarte, all of California — joined Democrats to defeat the measure with a vote of 209 to 201. A dozen Republicans and a dozen Democrats opted not to vote. 

Greene introduced her resolution on Thursday and, if it had passed, the measure would have bypassed the legislative process to force a Senate trial. Since it failed in a vote of the entire chamber, the bill was instead rerouted to the House Homeland Security Committee.

Unsurprisingly, the DHS dismissed Greene’s effort and touted Mayorkas’ supposed success at the helm of the agency.

“Secretary Mayorkas continues to be laser-focused on the safety and security of our nation,” the statement asserted. “This baseless attack is completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities.”

Of course, Greene was far from the first House Republican to suggest that Mayorkas should be impeached due to his performance as secretary. 

Prior to his ouster from the position earlier this year, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was a leading proponent of the concept.

“Our country may never recover from Secretary Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty,” he said more than a year ago. “This is why today I am calling on the secretary to resign. If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate every order, every action and every failure. And we will determine whether we can begin an impeachment inquiry.”

Although McCarthy’s successor, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has not issued a full-throated call for impeachment, he recently suggested that such charges are warranted.

“I mean, it’s inexcusable what he’s done,” Johnson said. “I believe he’s committed impeachable offenses, but we only have so much time and resources to go after that.”