Marjorie Taylor Greene is pushing her colleagues to impeach Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — again.
The Georgia firebrand on Wednesday introduced her second Mayorkas impeachment resolution in one month, which she's aiming to force a vote on within two legislative days. Greene’s last attempt to eject Mayorkas failed, with the vote instead sending her impeachment resolution to the Homeland Security Committee, which has been investigating the senior Biden administration official for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border for months.
All House Democrats voted to send her last motion to the panel, along with eight House Republicans. It’s unlikely that the math has changed enough for the vote to succeed this time. There’s still a larger swath within the conference that isn't yet on board with what would be a historic step to boot a Cabinet official.
Greene said Wednesday that she hasn’t talked to the eight Republicans who voted to send her resolution to committee earlier this month, and that she hasn’t spoken to Speaker Mike Johnson.
“I think it’s something that should be a priority for him as speaker of the House. I know it was under Speaker McCarthy,” Greene said, adding that if the ex-GOP leader was still in charge he would have “discussed a path to make it successful. But I haven’t heard from Speaker Johnson at all.”
Greene said that she plans to keep reintroducing the resolution if it fails.
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), one of the eight who voted to refer a Mayorkas impeachment to committee previously, teed off on Greene shortly before she made her motion on Wednesday. While McClintock said he agreed with the actions Greene is accusing Mayorkas of, he doesn’t believe they meet the bar of an impeachment offense.
“If Ms. Greene is successful in redefining impeachment, then the next time Democrats have the majority we can expect this new definition to be turned against the conservatives on the Supreme Court and any future Republican administration,” McClintock said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that Congress needs "to stop wasting time and do its job by reforming our broken immigration system, reauthorizing vital tools for DHS, and passing the Administration’s supplemental request to properly resource the Department’s critical work to stop fentanyl and further secure our borders. Secretary Mayorkas continues to be laser-focused on the safety and security of our nation. This baseless attack is completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities.”
Greene’s move comes after Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told Republicans behind closed doors on Wednesday that Republicans could soon vote to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
McClintock added that Greene was “tainting this serious impeachment inquiry with a shoot-from-the-hip stunt.”
