McCarthy Speaker quest leaves balancing act on national security

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is toeing a delicate line on national security issues in the lame-duck session as he seeks to win enough votes on the House floor to win the Speakership in January.

McCarthy is torn between competing factions of the GOP as he weighs a series of moves targeting the Biden administration and other Washington Democrats in the next Congress — all while trying to convince conservative GOP lawmakers to back him for Speaker.

He’s vowed to boot California Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell off the House Intelligence Committee and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He’s also threatened to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of the southern border.

And McCarthy has indicated he will withhold GOP support for a lame-duck vote on a bipartisan defense policy bill as a way to fight “wokeism” in the military.  

If the delay is successful, it would mark the first time in more than 60 years that has Congress failed to reauthorize Pentagon spending by the end of a calendar year; the delay would allow a GOP House to take it up next year.



Democrats have blasted McCarthy’s plans to boot Democrats from panels as purely political, while Republicans say Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) set Congress on that slippery slope when House Democrats impeached former President Trump twice and later expelled two Republicans from their committee seats.

The House voted last year to punish Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for sharing an animated video showing him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) was removed months earlier for promoting the execution of leading Democrats before she was elected to office. 

McCarthy blamed Democrats for “this new standard.”

“Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee,” McCarthy said at the start of 2022. “This is a new level of what the Democrats have done.”

For Schiff, McCarthy has zeroed in on his role in the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, accusing him of lying to the public about the former president’s ties to Moscow and Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. He’s bashed Swalwell for his ties to a Chinese spy with whom he cut off contact after being warned of her true identity by the FBI.

Schiff said his targeting is nothing more than an effort by McCarthy to win support for his Speakership bid.

McCarthy was elected Speaker-designate in a closed-door GOP conference vote, but lost 31 votes. He will need to win over many of them to be elected Speaker on the House floor.

“McCarthy’s problem is not with what I have said about Russia. McCarthy’s problem is, he can’t get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz,” Schiff said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union." 

“And so he will do whatever they ask. And, right now, they’re asking for me to be removed from our committees. And he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to do anything they ask.”

The Mayorkas fight reflects the awkward line that McCarthy is trying to walk.

He courted conservative votes last week by vowing an investigation of Mayorkas but did not fully embrace an impeachment vote, allowing himself wiggle room to change his mind next year.

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate. Every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said at a press conference in El Paso, Texas.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) expressed doubt the GOP would be able to impeach Mayorkas swiftly.

“You’ve got to build a case. You need the facts, evidence before you indict. Has he been derelict in his responsibilities? I think so,” he said.

Other Republicans, however, want to go full steam ahead, suggesting anything short of Mayorkas’s removal would put the country’s security at risk.

“He needs to go,” Rep. Ronnie Jackson (R-Texas) told Fox News on Sunday. “We need to make an example of Mayorkas. And he will be just the start of what we do in this new Congress.”

Other Republicans have dismissed an impeachment vote as a stunt.

“It would basically be putting form over substance to go through a big performance on impeachment that’s never going anywhere,” former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a George W. Bush appointee, said over the weekend, “rather than actually working with the administration to solve the problem.”

McCarthy also faces divisions on delaying the defense bill, as some Republicans want to move forward and also pull back from threats to limit support for Ukraine. 

McCarthy says he wants to pump the breaks on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and another round of funding to aid Ukraine in its battle against Russia, saying he wouldn’t back a “blank check.”

“I’ve watched what the Democrats have done on many of these things, especially the NDAA — the wokeism that they want to bring in there,” McCarthy told reporters shortly after the midterms. “I actually believe the NDAA should hold up until the 1st of this year — and let’s get it right.”

McCarthy is far from the only Republican with complaints about the NDAA. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) put out a report slamming the “Woke Warfighters” of the Pentagon. But McCarthy is also facing pressure from the right.

“Let’s hold the bill hostage. Let’s leverage what we have,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who opposes McCarthy’s Speakership bid, recently said on a podcast. 

Democrats and the Biden administration argue a delay will hurt the military.

“If you kick it off four, five, six months, you are really damaging the United States military. So I hope Kevin McCarthy understands that,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said. “You are damaging the United States military every day past Oct. 1 that you don’t get it done, and certainly more so every day past" Jan. 1.

On Ukraine, some Republicans have bristled at the idea of holding back any funding as the country continues to make advances against Russia.

“We're going to make certain they get what they need,” House Intelligence Committee ranking member Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in an appearance alongside McCaul.

“The fact is, we are going to provide more oversight, transparency and accountability. We're not going to write a blank check,” McCaul added. “Does that diminish our will to help the Ukraine people fight? No. But we're going to do it in a responsible way.” 

GOP prepares for House takeover: Five things to watch

House Republicans will take the reins of the lower chamber in fewer than six weeks, returning to power after four years in the minority wilderness to usher in a new era of divided government heading into the 2024 presidential election. 

The shift comes after two years when President Biden enjoyed Democratic control of the House and the Senate. And it will have drastic implications for the workings of Washington, setting the stage for countless clashes between the House and the administration over everything from government spending and border security to the fight against inflation and the future of Medicare and Social Security.

Republicans are also promising to focus much of their energy on investigations, including the administration’s handling of the southern border, charges of political bias at the Justice Department, and the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter. 

Here are five things to watch as the House is poised to change hands. 

McCarthy will struggle with narrow majority

Republicans charged into this month’s midterms with wide eyes for big gains — Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had predicted a 60-seat flip — that would afford them a comfortable cushion for pushing legislation through the lower chamber next year.

Instead, they squeaked out a victory, and their underperformance leaves them a slim majority — just a handful of seats — and little room for error as they bring bills to the floor.

Those dynamics play to the great advantage of the far-right Freedom Caucus, the home of McCarthy’s loudest internal detractors, where members are already angling to secure a number of conservative priorities — including a balanced budget amendment and an end to U.S. funding for Ukraine — that party leaders have been reluctant to endorse. 

If Republicans had scored a larger majority, GOP leaders would have been insulated from those demands. As it stands, McCarthy might be forced to consider them, even if it puts more moderate Republicans — and the GOP’s fragile majority — in danger in 2024. 

“He had predicted — what? — 60 seats? If you don’t perform the way you told people, people question it. They didn’t get exactly what they wanted,” said a former leadership aide. “A tight margin makes it very difficult.” 

McCarthy is also likely to face conservative pressure in the coming battles to fund the government and lift the debt ceiling — the same debates that had fueled the Tea Party movement more than a decade ago and have created headaches for GOP leaders ever since. 

“When you look at John Boehner and Paul Ryan, two previous Speakers, they got out. They got out early because they could not deal with their right-wing extremists,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNN on Tuesday. “I think McCarthy's going to find the same problem.” 

Winning the Speaker’s gavel

The Republicans’ slim House advantage poses another even more immediate problem for McCarthy heading into the new Congress: Whether he’ll have enough GOP support to win the Speaker’s gavel.

McCarthy easily won the Republican nomination for the post earlier this month, 188 to 31. But he needs to surpass a much higher bar — a majority of the full House — when the chamber meets on Jan. 3 to choose the next Speaker. With Republicans on track to have 222 House seats, at most, McCarthy can have far fewer than 31 defectors.

Helping him along, McCarthy has secured support from several prominent Freedom Caucus members — including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — as well as former President Trump.

But other conservatives are vowing to oppose him, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who all say they’re firm nos. Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Bob Good (R-Va.) are also voicing their resistance. Some are warning that they’re just the tip of the opposition iceberg. 

McCarthy, whose Speakership bid was blocked by conservatives in 2015, is the first to acknowledge the internal challenge he’s facing. 

“Look, we have our work cut out for us,” he told reporters just after winning the GOP nomination.  “We’ve got to have a small majority. We’ve got to listen to everybody in our conference.” 

Democrats are watching from the sidelines, wary that whatever promises McCarthy might make to win over the conservatives will make the lower chamber ungovernable.

“It's one thing if you have a large majority, and you can sort of say, ‘Well, I can afford to ignore the crazies like Marjorie Taylor Greene,’” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told MSNBC on Monday. “It's another if you have just a handful that are keeping you in the speaker's chair, and they're crazy.”

Change has come for Democrats

If the GOP leadership structure remains largely unchanged next year, the same will not be true across the aisle. 

House Democrats will undergo a massive makeover in the next Congress after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top two deputies — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Jim Clyburn (S.C.) — stepped out of the top three leadership spots after almost two decades together. 

The abdications opened the floodgates for a new generation of up-and-coming Democrats to seize the reins of the party. And a trio of younger leaders — Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — wasted no time stepping into the void as candidates for the top three positions, respectively. 

All three are running unopposed, and are expected to win their seats easily when House Democrats stage their leadership elections next week.

For Jeffries, ascending to the minority leader spot would be historic, making him the first Black lawmaker to lead either party, in either chamber, since the nation’s founding. It would also limit the Democrats’ regional diversity, putting a New York City lawmaker in charge of the party in both the House and the Senate, where Chuck Schumer is expected to return next year as majority leader.  

The shakeup — Pelosi’s departure in particular — has raised questions about the strategic changes to come in both parties. 

For Democrats, that means determining what role Pelosi and Hoyer — who are both staying in Congress — will play as rank-and-file members. It also means deciding whether to designate more power to rank-and-file members and the committee heads after decades when much of the authority was consolidated with Pelosi. And they’ll have their work cut out in trying to recreate the fundraising role Pelosi has played over the last two decades. 

For Republicans, who have spent years and millions of dollars demonizing Pelosi, it means finding another Democratic foil to use on the campaign trail.  

Meanwhile, the would-be relationship between the House’s likely top leaders, McCarthy and Jeffries, is off to a rough start. 

Jeffries, as head of the Democratic Caucus, has attacked McCarthy relentlessly since the Republican leader cozied up to Trump in the weeks after last year’s rampage at the Capitol, calling him “embarrassing” and “pathetic.” And the two have not spoken in some time.

Last week, Jeffries acknowledged the absence of any real connection. 

“I do have, I think, a much warmer relationship with Steve Scalise,” he said on CNN’s “Meet the Press.” 

Impeachment is already on the table

For months, House conservatives have pressed the case for impeaching Biden and members of his cabinet if the House were to change hands — a warning to both the administration and any GOP leaders who might be reluctant to take that step. 

On Tuesday, McCarthy threw those Republicans a bone, saying he would consider impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas next year if the Homeland Security secretary refused to resign beforehand. Republicans have long been critical of Mayorkas’s handling of the migrant crisis at the southern border, and Republicans in this Congress have already introduced resolutions to remove him. 

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate, every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told reporters in El Paso, Texas.

The announcement is sure to appease the GOP’s conservative wing, which is where McCarthy needs more support to win the Speaker’s gavel. But whether he follows through on the threat next year remains to be seen. 

Republicans were hurt politically following their impeachment of President Clinton in 1998, and many in the GOP — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — have warned against making the same mistake next year. 

Yet there are also perils for McCarthy if he ignores the impeachment demands: It could spark an outcry from a GOP base — much of which is still loyal to Trump — that’s keen to avenge the two impeachments that targeted the former president. And conservatives will be watching closely, ready to lash out at GOP leaders deemed insufficiently aggressive in taking on the Biden White House. 

McCarthy seems to be keeping his options open, promising only that Republicans will investigate Mayorkas and see where it leads. 

“This investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry,” he said in El Paso.

Other fights to watch

With Republicans taking over the House, most of Biden’s ambitious domestic agenda is likely to come to a screeching halt. But that doesn’t mean the end of high-stakes legislating. 

Congress next year will still — at a minimum — have to fund the federal government in order to prevent a shutdown, and raise Washington’s borrowing limit to stave off a government default.

Both debates are expected to squeeze House GOP leaders between the more moderate forces of the Senate — where McConnell will have to sign off on any fiscal deals — and the conservative firebrands of the lower chamber who say they’re ready to risk shutdowns and defaults to rein in government spending and realize other pieces of their legislative wishlist. 

Part of that debate could feature a balanced budget amendment, which was the reason Ralph Norman said he’s opposing McCarthy’s Speakership bid. There’s also likely to be a push from the right to cut the big entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — which are on autopilot and represent a huge chunk of the federal budget. 

Must-pass government spending bills would also provide ready opportunity for House Republicans to attach other priority items, including provisions to build a border wall, expand domestic oil drilling and roll back environmental regulations. 

A Democratic-led Senate would balk at such provisions — and Biden would likely veto any such bill that got that far — but the GOP-led House could force the issue. 

Funding for Ukraine will get outsized attention next year. Under Democratic control — and with broad bipartisan support — Congress has approved tens-of-billions of dollars to help Kyiv weather the Russian assault. But a number of conservatives are vowing to oppose any new funding, saying that’s money better spent fixing problems at home. 

Some Democrats are already voicing their concerns.

“It's not hard to figure out that with a tiny, tiny majority — you know, Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene together in a room control the fate of Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told MSNBC on Tuesday. “And so the question is sort of, how much does he feed them?"

McCarthy calls on DHS Secretary Mayorkas to resign, threatens impeachment inquiry

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that GOP lawmakers will consider impeachment next year if he does not step down.

“If Secretary Mayorkas does not resign, House Republicans will investigate, every order, every action and every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said at a press conference in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday.

McCarthy cited the Department of Homeland Security head's statements to Congress that the border is under control, record border crossing numbers and his ending of the "Remain in Mexico" asylum policy instituted during the Trump administration as reasons for resignation.

“Our country may never recover from Secretary Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty,” McCarthy said.

The comments from the minority leader are his strongest words on impeachment to date, but they fall short of a promise to bring up articles against Mayorkas.

McCarthy was nominated by House Republicans to serve as Speaker in the next Congress last week during a closed-door vote.

But he still faces opposition from hard-line conservatives, who called on him to be more aggressive on topics including the impeachment of Biden administration officials and President Biden himself.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, mounted a last-minute protest challenge to McCarthy for Speaker, citing the minority leader's lack of commitment to impeach Mayorkas. Biggs has previously introduced articles of impeachment against the administration official. He won 31 votes in the secret-ballot House Republican Conference meeting, while McCarthy received 188.

McCarthy needs support from a majority of those voting for a Speaker candidate on the House floor on Jan. 3 in order to be elected to the post.

But Republicans won a narrow majority in the 2022 midterms, and McCarthy has little wiggle room for error on that vote. A few Republicans, including Biggs, have indicated that they will not vote for him.

The press conference with other House GOP members came after a day of touring the U.S.-Mexico border and meeting with border officials.

McCarthy said that Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and James Comer (Ky.), the likely chairs of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees next year, “have my complete support to investigate the collapse of our border, and the shutdown of ICE enforcement.”

“Leader McCarthy is right. Americans deserve accountability for the unprecedented crisis on the southwest border. Republicans will hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable for his failure to enforce immigration law and secure the border through all means necessary,” Jordan, who would oversee impeachment proceedings if they occurred, said in a statement distributed during the press conference.

Republicans made a pledge to investigate the Biden administration’s border and migration policies a key part of their midterm campaign message, and Comer has long said he will hold hearings about the border. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joked in September that the House GOP would give Mayorkas a reserved parking spot because he would be testifying so often.

Mayorkas, who has no plans to resign, pushed back on Congress in a statement issued shortly after McCarthy's speech.

“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which have not been overhauled in over 40 years,” the statement continued. 

In appearances before Congress last week, Mayorkas maintained that the border is under control, but he acknowledged that the fiscal year ending in September showed that a record 1.7 million migrants attempted to cross the Southwest border.

“The entire hemisphere is suffering a migration crisis. We are seeing unprecedented movement of people from country to country,” he said.

He also pledged to look for new ways to restrict immigration now that a federal court has struck down Title 42, which allowed the agency to quickly expel migrants without seeking asylum due to public health concerns.

Mayorkas said the department is currently evaluating how to expel Venezuelans at the border, a group that makes up a large part of migrants coming to America given the political and economic instability there.

The latest calls for Mayorkas to resign come shortly after U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned from his position after being asked to do so by President Biden.

McCarthy first appeared to open the door to impeachment of Mayorkas at another press conference in April. 

“This is his moment in time to do his job. But at any time if someone is derelict in their job, there is always the option of impeaching somebody,” McCarthy said at an April press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas.

But he later tamped down expectations for impeachment, saying that he does not want the procedure to be political as he claimed Democrats' impeachment of former President Trump was. McCarthy reiterated that sentiment on Tuesday in El Paso.

“We never do impeachment for political purposes. We’re having investigation,” McCarthy said. 

“We know exactly what Secretary Mayorkas has done. We've watched across this nation, something that’s never happened before. We watched him time and again before committee say this border is secure, and we can't find one border agent who agrees with him,” McCarthy said. “So we will investigate. If investigation leads to impeachment inquiry, we will follow through.”

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.

Five things to know about Andy Biggs

Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) on Monday night announced that he’ll challenge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) to become the Republican conference’s nominee for Speaker of the House. 

“We have a new paradigm here, and I think the country wants a different direction from the House of Representatives. And it’s a new world, and, yes, I’m going to be nominated tomorrow to — to the position of Speaker of the House,” Biggs said on Newsmax.

The Arizona lawmaker had argued last week that the party should reconsider rallying behind McCarthy, who announced his bid the day after the midterm elections.

McCarthy won an internal vote on Tuesday to become the House Speaker, 188-31, but will still have to gain a majority of 218 votes in his favor when the next Congress begins on Jan. 3, assuming a fully sworn-in House.

Republicans’ anticipated “red wave” failed to rush over the nation with hoped-for GOP wins in the midterms. Democrats were able to buck historical precedent and hold on to power in the Senate and put up a tougher-than-expected fight for the House. 

Now, a week after Election Day, votes are still being tallied to determine which party will snag the lower chamber majority. Republicans believe they’ll grab control with a slim majority.

Here are five things to know about Biggs as he makes his bid to take the top Speaker spot and challenge longtime GOP leader McCarthy:

Served as Freedom Caucus chairman

Biggs was formerly the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a far-right bloc now led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).

The caucus is known for its confrontational tactics and willingness to criticize House GOP leadership, making the group a potential challenge for McCarthy if he does become Speaker. 

The group has also pressed GOP leadership to make rule changes that would empower individual members in the House Republican Conference, including a tweak that would let any member to make a “motion to vacate the Chair,” or oust the Speaker. 

Introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas

Biggs has introduced articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a target of conservatives critical of the Biden administration’s policies and action on the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“Mayorkas and [U.S. Attorney General Merrick] Garland have purposefully made our country less safe, politicized their departments, and violated the rule of law. In some instances, they have instructed their subordinates to disobey our laws. That is unacceptable,” Biggs said earlier this year.

“Next January I expect the House to pursue my impeachment articles against Mayorkas,” he added.

McCarthy has also expressed that impeachment could be possible for Mayorkas if the secretary was found to be failing in his task to secure the border, though the likelihood of any success for such an initiative is low, even in a chamber with a slim GOP majority. 

Friendly with Sen. Sinema

Biggs and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D), who has been accused by others in the Democratic Party of apathy toward some of the party’s issues, have been friendly since their days working together in the Arizona legislature.

"I love Andy Biggs. I know some people think he's crazy, but that's just because they don't know him," Sinema said of Biggs, according to New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns in their book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.” 

Biggs is one of the most conservative members of Congress and has resisted President Biden's 2020 win in Arizona, which Biden flipped from red to blue.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) on Sunday said Sinema “did nothing” to help the state's Democrats in the midterm elections and accused her of wanting her party to lose.

Considered a Senate bid

The Arizona Republican weighed a bid to jump from the lower chamber up to the Senate.

Biggs said last year that he was “seriously considering” a run as former President Trump readied to boost his supporters in their midterm bids. 

Biggs, a longtime ally of the former president, would have faced off against incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly (D), who was projected last week to defeat Republican challenger Blake Masters in one of the races that was key to boosting Democrats to hold their Senate majority.

The congressman ultimately decided to run for a fourth term in the House and is projected to win his district by a wide margin.

Subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee

The former Freedom Caucus chairman has come under scrutiny for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot after he touted Trump’s false claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election. 

The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 subpoenaed Biggs and a handful of other GOP House lawmakers, including McCarthy, after they refused to voluntarily testify.

The committee alleged that Biggs was involved in “plans to bring protestors to Washington for the counting of Electoral College votes” and "efforts to persuade state officials that the 2020 was stolen.” 

The panel named Biggs among a number of Republican lawmakers who asked for presidential pardons for their role in trying to overturn election results in certain states on Jan. 6.

How a GOP Congress could try to impeach a Biden Cabinet member

Republicans have vowed to use the full power of the House of Representatives if they take control in November, threatening everything from shutting down investigations into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to impeaching President Biden and his cabinet secretaries.

While Republicans are all but certain to terminate the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, it's less clear whether they'll risk the political uncertainties of an impeachment trial.

But if they take the plunge, their sights will be on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In a letter to Mayorkas last week, GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) explicitly threatened impeachment over the secretary's "gross dereliction of duty" in managing the U.S.-Mexico border.

That missive followed an April letter led by the Republican Study Committee and signed by 133 House Republicans that avoided explicitly calling for impeachment, but laid out the case for Republicans to raise immigration policy differences to the level of impeachable offenses.

"Your actions have willingly endangered American citizens and undermined the rule of law and our nation's sovereignty. Your failure to secure the border and enforce the laws passed by Congress raises grave questions about your suitability for office," wrote the lawmakers.

The Constitution allows for impeachment of the president and other “civil officers” for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

But it's unclear what is meant by "high crimes and misdemeanors," and impeachment is understood to be an essentially political act – a Senate would need very little substantial cause to convict an official impeached by the House.

"With my political scientist hat on, I'd say what counts as a high crime or misdemeanor is what you can get two thirds of the Senate to vote to convict on. And that in itself, it's not a substantive standard. It's a procedural one," said Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Georgetown University.

But Chafetz added that's a "very high bar," since it would require significant buy-in from the president's party.

And while technically there are no limits – other than whip counts in both chambers – to what behaviors Congress can interpret as "high crimes and misdemeanors," precedent does set some boundaries.

“The Constitution provides for impeachment in the case of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors — not for political revenge or partisan retribution," said David Rapallo, director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown Law.

That reading still leaves space for debate as to what constitutes grounds for conviction under impeachment.

"There's been a debate about whether there must be a statutory code violation of a crime to impeach. The general view is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a criminal act under the statutory code, but rather an abuse of power in some way,” said Rapallo.

The Republican case against Mayorkas lies largely on high migrant apprehension and drug interdiction numbers at the southwest border.

U.S. officials encountered 2,150,639 immigrants entering the country without prior authorization in the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, breaking the record for encounters in a year.

And fentanyl seizures continue to rise, as Mexican drug cartels abandon other drugs for the cheaper-to-produce synthetic opioid.

If the GOP takes control of the House, they will almost certainly bring down the hammer on Mayorkas through congressional oversight, but Republicans seem eager to raise the specter of impeachment.

In their letter, Graham and Cruz accuse Mayorkas of aggravating conditions on the border, in part by attempting to end policies put in place under the Trump administration, namely construction of the border wall; the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as "Remain in Mexico"; and Title 42, a policy to quickly expel foreign nationals under the guise of pandemic protections.

While the Department of Homeland Security halted border wall construction shortly after Biden took office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced a plan to return to construction sites in the Sonoran Desert to resume construction of some segments of the wall.

But Graham and Cruz zeroed in on Mayorkas' attempts to end MPP, which are tangled up in the courts.

"Your expedited and repeated rejection of President Trump's successful Migrant Protection Protocols … demonstrates your willingness to embrace an open-borders agenda that undermines America's safety," they wrote. 

"You have been specifically instructed by the court to implement the protocol in good faith or take new agency action that complied with the law. You have done neither."

While the Biden administration was originally directed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to continue MPP's implementation "in good faith," the case was returned to a lower court after the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration's plans to end the policy.

A lower court lifted the order to continue implementing MPP and DHS has been winding the program down.

"In short, MPP is over for now, although there is confusion surrounding its ending," reads a post on MPP's current state of affairs on the American Immigration Lawyers Association blog.

That distinction could blunt the GOP senators' call for impeachment.

"The traditional story we tell about impeachment in America is that it doesn't apply to just bad policy. It's not about maladministration, but rather, it's about malfeasance or nonfeasance," said Chafetz.

And historical precedent is on cabinet members' side when it comes to impeachment.

The only cabinet member ever impeached was President Grant's secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

While most historians agree the accusations against Belknap were credible, he avoided conviction in his 1876 impeachment trial because he resigned on the same day he was impeached.

Like President Nixon nearly a century later, Belknap chose to resign rather than face almost certain conviction in the Senate, although the House did pass Belknap's articles of impeachment.

“If it were something like Richard Nixon — that era where his own party was telling him what was coming, and it would be better for him to resign than go through that process — he chose to resign, and after that occurred, they didn't go forward,” said Rapallo.

The precedent that being out of office obviates an impeachment conviction was reinforced in 2021, when Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial after leaving office.

Because of that precedent, any official facing probable impeachment conviction is more likely to resign than to become the first executive officer convicted by the Senate.

"​​​​I just don't see any way they would get to 67 [Senate votes] based on what we've seen now," said Chafetz.

"Now, again, if it turns out tomorrow that some member of the cabinet has a freezer full of cash that they got from a foreign government, sure. But of course in that situation, they'd almost certainly resign or be fired," he added.

Conversely, Biden and his cabinet are unlikely to yield in an impeachment trial they can win, even if the proceedings disrupt an official's duties.

"If you're Biden, it's a short term-long term trade off, because maybe the department can get a move on with business, but the Republicans have successfully claimed a scalp and what's to prevent them from going after the next cabinet official?" said Chafetz.

And if Republicans do take the House, their leadership ranks will have their hands full controlling an ideological and outspoken caucus.

While at least two separate articles of impeachment have been filed against Biden by Republican lawmakers in the current Congress, GOP leadership has not invested political capital in those bills.

Any GOP impeachment of Biden risks being seen as a tit-for-tat over the two Democratic impeachments of Trump, and that protection could extend to cabinet secretaries.

“The Constitution doesn't provide for impeaching a cabinet secretary because you think impeaching the president is too much politically,” said Rapallo.

And dragging immigration into a constitutional controversy could backfire for Republicans.

“It's well known that the Republicans were close to agreeing on legislation related to immigration, but changed their minds and haven't been interested in solving the problem since then,” said Rapallo.

“So on one hand, to walk away from the effort to legislate, and then on the other, to go after the cabinet secretary who's charged with implementing the laws is a little rich, I would say.”  

Matt Gaetz Warns There Are Republican Squishes Already Trying to Shut Down Biden Impeachment

MAGA Representative Matt Gaetz, in an interview on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, claims there are Republican lawmakers already voicing opposition to impeaching President Biden should the GOP take back the House.

Gaetz also says some of his Republican colleagues are working against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who he accuses of “purposefully turning our border into a turnstile.”

“There are current members of the Republican majority, people who will be in the next Congress, who are arguing very, very fervently that they will oppose the use of the ‘I’ word, impeachment, in any context for any official in the Biden administration,” he told Bannon.

“And I believe that would totally misunderstand the mandate that the American people are giving us.”

RELATED: MAGA Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls For Biden’s Impeachment Following ‘President Butterbeans’ Divisive Speech

Gaetz: Biden Impeachment is a Priority

Gaetz has insisted impeachment must be a priority for Republicans should the midterms yield control of the House. He notes that it’s time to start fighting fire with fire.

Democrats, after all, did not hesitate to impeach Trump for a pair of absurd reasons that did not amount to high crimes and misdemeanors.

“If we don’t use the same tools, if we don’t engage in impeachment inquiries to get the documents and the testimony and the information we need, then I believe that our voters will feel betrayed,” said Gaetz.

“And that likely could be the biggest win that Democrats could hope for in 2024,” he surmised.

 

RELATED: Hollywood Conservative Jon Voight Calls On Joe Biden To Be Impeached

Plenty of Reasons to Impeach – But Who Will Actually Do It?

The Political Insider reported in December that the GOP is planning investigations on several fronts should they prevail in the midterms: The IRS, the National Security Agency, parents of school children, the border crisis, COVID response, and Afghanistan.

While it would be nice to get them all on record, we can only guess as to which Republicans would actually follow through on an impeachment inquiry into President Biden regarding any of these issues.

I’m pretty confident Gaetz would pursue the inquiry.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) as recently as a few weeks ago insisted Biden should be impeached following his divisive speech in which he called Republicans who back Donald Trump “extremists.”

“I guess when President Butterbeans is frail, weak, and dementia ridden, the Hitler imagery was their attempt to make him look ‘tough’ while he declares war on half of America as enemies of the state,” Greene tweeted.

Another MAGA Rep., Lauren Boebert (R-CO), wasn’t shy about calling for Biden’s impeachment over last year’s disastrous troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Who else would be on board?

Representative Nancy Mace, by contrast, recently made the absurd argument that impeaching President Biden would be a “divisive” move.

“I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process was stripped away, for anyone,” she told MSNBC. “I typically vote constitutionally, regardless of who is in power.”

Senator Ted Cruz has suggested the House has grounds to begin impeachment hearings against President Biden.

“If we take the House, which I said is overwhelmingly likely, then I think we will see serious investigations of the Biden administration,” Cruz said.

Cruz, unlike the Republican squishes who Gaetz claims are already backing down, understands that the Democrats are the ones who opened Pandora’s Box.

“Whether it’s justified or not, the Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him,” Cruz said.

According to Rasmussen Reports, a majority of voters – including a third of Democrats – believe President Biden should be impeached.

“Republican voters overwhelmingly believe President Joe Biden should be impeached, and half of independents agree,” the polling outfit reports.

GOP lawmakers and candidates should be asked if they’d be willing to consider moving on a matter that a majority of Americans want them to pursue.

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