[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H5940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      REDEFINING IMPEACHMENT IS A PERILOUS PATH FOR CONSERVATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, as Homeland Security Secretary, 
Alejandro Mayorkas has carried out the Biden administration's open 
border policy and deliberately produced the worst illegal mass 
migration in history.
  Since he took office, he has released 3 million illegal immigrants 
directly into the country, a population the size of the entire State of 
Arkansas.
  While the Border Patrol has been occupied changing diapers and taking 
names, an additional 1.7 million known got-aways have entered, as well. 
That is an additional illegal population the size of the State of 
Hawaii.
  The impact on our schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, working 
families' wages, social programs, law enforcement, national security 
has been catastrophic.
  The national security implications of 1.7 million illegal individuals 
about whom we know absolutely nothing are terrifying in light of the 
October 7 attack on Israel.
  Now, in response, many are demanding Mayorkas' impeachment for 
``failing to maintain operational control of the border'' as 
Congresswoman Greene's resolution puts it. He is certainly guilty of 
that, and a whole lot more: maladministration, malfeasance, and neglect 
of duties on a truly cosmic scale, but these are not impeachable 
offenses.
  We know this because the American Founders specifically rejected 
these terms at the Constitutional Convention.
  As Madison explained, they feared that such imprecise grounds could 
be twisted into a weapon for political grievances and turned against 
the executive branch whenever Congress saw fit. This would make the 
President a mere minister of Congress and make his subordinates 
answerable to the legislative branch instead of the executive powers 
that are vested solely in the President. This would utterly destroy the 
separation of powers at the heart of our Constitution.
  They chose, instead, very specific and limited charges of treason, 
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
  True, many politicians through the centuries have tried to pervert 
the term ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' into a similarly vague 
definition, but the Founders would not have substituted one vague term 
for another, and thus we are left with the plain meaning of the phrase, 
clearly defined crimes related to the duties of the office.
  If Ms. Greene is successful in redefining impeachment, then the next 
time Democrats have the majority, we can expect this new definition be 
turned against the conservatives on the Supreme Court and any future 
Republican administration. Furthermore, there will be nobody to stop 
them because Republicans will have now signed off on this new and 
unconstitutional abuse of power.
  We must never allow the left to become our teachers. Theirs is a 
world of strictly situational ethics antithetical to our Constitution 
and to the rule of law. I vigorously opposed the sham impeachments of 
Donald Trump for exactly the same reason.
  Now, what is the practical effect of impeaching Mayorkas, other than 
assuring that Republicans will have no defense when a future Democrat 
majority turns this new definition against them?
  Even in the delusional fantasy where two-thirds of the Senate were to 
remove him, the same policies will remain in place as long as the 
Biden-Harris administration holds office.
  This crisis was set in motion by voters who elected them and can only 
be fixed by voters replacing them with a President determined to secure 
our border as Donald Trump did.
  Elections have consequences, sometimes terrible consequences, and 
this is one of them. The only Cabinet Secretary ever impeached was 
Ulysses Grant's Secretary of War for running a family bribery scheme. 
The House Oversight Committee is painstakingly assembling evidence that 
suggests the Bidens may have been doing exactly this for decades.
  Such a serious inquiry can only have legitimacy and credibility if 
the rule of law is respected and the constitutional guardrails are 
observed.
  By failing to abide by due process and constitutional constraints, 
Ms. Greene is tainting this serious impeachment inquiry with a shoot-
from-the-hip stunt that is reckless, partisan, and manifestly 
unserious.
  In Robert Bolt's ``A Man For All Seasons,'' William Roper vows ``to 
cut down every law in England'' to get at the Devil.
  Sir Thomas More replies, ``Oh? And when the last law was down, and 
the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws 
all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to 
coast, Man's laws, not God's. And if you cut them down, and you're just 
the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the 
winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil the benefit of the 
law, for my own safety's sake.''

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