Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., argued Wednesday he was obeying the Constitution after he became one of three Republicans to vote against the impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
McClintock’s vote marked a major blow for House Republicans who have pushed for Mayorkas’ removal.
“The Constitution reserves impeachment for treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors,” McClintock said on Fox News. “That is a very specific meaning, crimes relating to the office.”
HOUSE FAILS TO IMPEACH DHS SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS IN MAJOR BLOW TO GOP
“Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration on a truly cosmic scale, but that is not grounds for impeachment,” he continued. “We know that because the Constitutional Convention considered that and rejected it for that very reason.”
The congressman also claimed that Republicans were risking future abuse of impeachment proceedings if Democrats manage to take control of the House.
“The moment we dumb-down that standard, the Democrats take control of the House, they’ll turn that against the conservatives on the Supreme Court, they’ll turn it against a future Republican administration,” McClintock said. “This is a road that we really shouldn’t be going down.”
“Even in the fantasy world where the Senate by two-thirds vote would remove him from office, he would simply be replaced by somebody like Ocasio-Cortez,” he added.
McClintock said that the border crisis would not “be solved by replacing one leftist official with another” but only by “replacing the entire administration and that can only be done by the people at the ballot box.”
In a similar war, McClintock said that even the theoretical removal of President Biden from office would not result in any significant departure from current administration policy.
“Frankly, removing Biden for Kamala Harris wouldn’t change anything,” he said. “It’s the administration itself and the policies that are the problem.”
The vote against impeaching Mayorkas was 216-214, with lawmakers voting on a resolution combining two articles of impeachment that accused Mayorkas of having “refused to comply with Federal immigration laws” and the other of having violated “public trust.” A Cabinet secretary has not been impeached since Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.
“Under Secretary Mayorkas’ watch, Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 8.5 million encounters at our borders, including more than 7 million apprehensions at the southwest border,” Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., said on the House floor. “Even more terrifying is the approximately 1.8 million known got-aways that Border Patrol agents detect but are unable to apprehend. Millions of those inadmissible aliens who are encountered are eventually released into our communities. This has never happened before in our history. And it doesn’t happen by accident.”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
