PRESS RELEASE Contact: press@congressionalintegrity.org
For Immediate Release
Date: June 7, 2023
Watch the full briefing here
Washington, DC – Today, Ambassador Norm Eisen, noted legal scholar and counsel in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, Zachary Mueller, Political Director of America’s Voice, Joel Rubin, President of Washington Strategy Group, and Kyle Herrig, Executive Director of the Congressional Integrity Project, joined a virtual press call hosted by the Congressional Integrity Project.
The virtual press conference precedes the House Judiciary Committee’s latest hearing on immigration, where the Republicans on the Committee are planning to lay out the groundwork for a bogus impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
This hearing comes shortly after Kevin McCarthy made a deal with Marjorie Taylor Greene and other MAGA Republicans to give them concessions like impeachment proceedings against Secretary Mayorkas in exchange for their votes on the bipartisan debt ceiling bill. Greene said the debt ceiling deal that she voted for was a “shit sandwich” but impeachment was her “dessert” that made it worth voting for the bill. The timing of this hearing makes it clear that this is a political payment to MAGA Republicans. Read our memo about the hearing here.
“You only impeach when there are high crimes and misdemeanors. The conduct of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas does not fit within the rules, laws, and precedent for the impeachment of a government official. Impeachment requires a legitimate abuse of power, not mere policy disagreements, and the abuse of power here is on the part of the MAGA majority, not the Secretary,” said Ambassador Norm Eisen. “Impeachment should not be utilized as a political weapon for payback to the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene. There is no legitimate policy basis for impeaching Secretary Mayorkas.”
“Over these last two years, MAGA Republicans have tried to establish new impossible standards, peddled fictions about a supposedly open border, and even embraced white nationalist conspiracy theories to justify a bogus political attack dressed up as serious congressional oversight,” said Zachary Mueller, Political Director, America’s Voice. “Today’s hearing is just one more bang on that drum where we will hear the same baseless arguments again.”
“Make no mistake, we are still in a heightened threat environment here in the United States, and these threats are domestic. They’re coming from domestic extremists. They’re coming from offenders with a high range of ideological grievances and personal grievances, including against the President, and these are white supremacist grievances of which we have categorically seen a spike in the United States. This secretary is taking action against that threat. Every minute that the DHS Secretary and his top officials are consumed by defending against a potential impeachment is a minute lost in protecting the homeland,” said Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and President of Washington Strategy Group. “Impeachment would therefore create an opportunity for domestic terrorists to increase their threat to the United States and to our citizens. If impeachment were to go forward, it would pose a direct national security danger to the United States. It’s also not lost on me — or anyone — that Secretary Mayorkas is both Latino and Jewish. These are two groups who are on the receiving end of the greatest threats to our nation caused by white supremacist radicalization. Impeachment proceedings would throw into disarray the exact agency we need to protect us from such domestic threats, particularly by antisemitic and anti-Latino white supremacist extremists, but perhaps that’s what the Republican conference wants.”
“Republicans are planning to lay the groundwork for a ridiculous exercise in partisan politics – that’s the impeachment of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. A key aspect to note about this hearing is its timing. It comes less than a week after McCarthy got punished by his extreme MAGA caucus for not pushing America into a default crisis To avoid all-out chaos McCarthy’s appeasing extreme MAGA Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who notably said that the debt ceiling she voted for was quote, ‘a shit sandwich, and impeachment was going to be the dessert that made the vote worth it.’ The timing of this hearing only makes sense in this context. Border crossings have actually gone down under Title 42 expired,” said Kyle Herrig, Executive Director, Congressional Integrity Project. “There are real-world consequences of these partisan stunts that should not be overlooked, including the ongoing demonization of migrants by MAGA Republicans that lead to more heated rhetoric around the issue. The national security concerns from dragging the Secretary of Homeland Security through a contentious and unnecessary partisan impeachment.”
Watch the full briefing here.
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