House Republicans Tell Mayorkas He’s Lying, Should Resign

By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee told Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas he lied under oath. They said he didn’t prepare for the hearing by responding to requests for information by the committee and wouldn’t answer questions. They also told him he should resign or be impeached.

RELATED: Cruz to Mayorkas: ‘If You Had Integrity, You Would Resign’

Mayorkas appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, which held a hearing on the “Oversight of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” Prior to the hearing, its chairman, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked Mayorkas to provide specific data about encounters with illegal foreign nationals, including details about asylum claims being processed. Mayorkas did not appear to provide the information.

After U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, repeatedly asked Mayorkas how many people have been released into the U.S. and deported under Mayorkas’ watch and he wouldn’t answer, Jordan asked the same questions.

“How many illegal aliens has the Biden administration released into the United States?” he asked. “How many illegal aliens has the Biden administration removed from the United States?”

Mayorkas said he would provide the committee with whatever data they requested, after Jordan requested the data prior to the hearing.

“We asked you to be prepared to answer the question,” Jordan said. “The fact that you won’t is bad, the fact that you don’t know is bad.”

Jordan reiterated that Americans want to know the answer. Mayorkas repeated the same reply, saying he will provide the data; “we have been cooperating with the committee.”

RELATED: Why Hasn’t the GOP Yet Walked the Walk on Its Mayorkas Impeachment Talk?

Jordan then showed the documents the committee received from DHS in response to questions it asked about its disinformation board created last year under Mayorkas.

The pages are blank.

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, thanked Mayorkas for “your performance. I have watched with fascination as you have danced and dodged and lied, yes lied. We know you’ve lied. You know you’ve lied; more importantly the American public knows that you lied throughout your testimony today.”

Mayorkas repeatedly claimed the border is secure, a claim U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, also affirmed on Wednesday.

Referring to DHS’ disinformation board, Hageman said, “And yet you believe that you and your fellow architects of the censorship industrial complex think that you should be able to determine what is and isn’t true and what is and isn’t untrue.

“You are the walking, talking epitome of the very tyrant that our forefathers recognized would gravitate towards government service. It is because of people like you that they drafted the First Amendment. …You do not have the right to limit our freedom of speech … Thank God we have the First Amendment so that we can stop you from doing what you’ve been doing.”

Former Democrat turned Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew from New Jersey listed what he said were Mayorkas’ failures and said he must resign, and then asked if he would resign.

Mayorkas replied, “No, I will not. I am incredibly proud of the work that is performed at the Department of Homeland Security.”

In response, Van Drew said, “Secretary Mayorkas if you will not resign that leaves us with no other option. You should be impeached.”

RELATED: Biden Admin Ripped Apart for Whining About Illegal Aliens Being Bussed to Blue Cities

U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told Mayorkas, “I’ve been in Congress seven years. I think you’re the most dishonest witness that has ever appeared before the Judiciary Committee. I think I speak for a lot of my colleagues. This is such a frustrating exercise … because our constituents want answers. They’re tired of open borders, they’re tired of people dying from fentanyl overdoses, and it’s your fault.”

The hearing was held as 525 known or suspected terrorists have been apprehended attempting to illegally enter the U.S. so far this fiscal year, including one that was released into the U.S. by DHS last year.

Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.

The post House Republicans Tell Mayorkas He’s Lying, Should Resign appeared first on The Political Insider.

Tensions flare in ‘weaponization’ panel hearing with sidelined FBI agents 

Republicans and Democrats battled during a tense hearing Thursday over three FBI agents who Republicans say were retaliated against for blowing the whistle on bias at the agency— and who Democrats argue the GOP is using to legitimize the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

GOP lawmakers accused the FBI of retaliating against “truth tellers” by revoking their security clearances because they espoused conservative views and took their concerns to Republicans on the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

“Politics is driving the federal agencies,” said Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee, alleging that the government targets citizens who are not politically correct.

“What’s just as frightening is if you’re one of the good employees who come forward to talk about the targeting, you become the target,” he added.

Democrats countered by arguing that the GOP, in the words of Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), was using the hearing as “a vehicle to legitimize the events of Jan. 6 and the people who perpetrated it.”

They questioned the FBI agents’ credibility and whether they should be considered whistleblowers, sparred with Republicans over access to documents and materials, and accused the panel of being a tool for former President Trump.

“This select committee is a clearing house for testing conspiracy theories for Donald Trump to use in his 2024 presidential campaign,” said Del. Stacey Plaskett (V.I.), the panel’s ranking Democrat. 

“You all have employment grievances. That doesn’t make you whistleblowers,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said.

The hearing, which took place just days after special counsel John Durham released a report that offered stark criticism for the FBI’s opening of an investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign ties to Russia, underscored GOP suspicions of the federal intelligence and law enforcement organizations.

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) at one point referenced the piercing evil eye from J. R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" series to describe the FBI.

“The Eye of Sauron has turned inward, and it is operating with a white-hot intensity that seeks to destroy everything in its path,” she said.  

The hearing accompanied the Thursday release of an interim staff report from the panel’s Republicans that detailed what it says are abuses by the FBI, as described by what Republicans say are dozens of whistleblowers.

Allegations both in the report and in the hearing range from the agents being directed to scribble down license plate numbers in a parking lot outside a school board meeting to being pressured to open cases on people who traveled to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, but did not enter the Capitol.

Democrats had already preemptively countered the GOP’s “weaponization” investigation, writing in a 300-page report in March that some of the GOP witnesses were connected to committee Republicans through people with deep ties to former President Trump. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) reiterated and established at the hearing that two of the witnesses had received donations from Kash Patel, a former top Department of Defense official who is a surrogate for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Jordan brushed off the financial connection between witnesses and Trump allies in a press conference Thursday.

“They’ve got a family. How are they supposed to pay their family?” he asked.

The FBI in a statement asserted that it does not retaliate against protected whistleblowers.

“The FBI’s mission is to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people. The FBI has not and will not retaliate against individuals who make protected whistleblower disclosures,” the agency said in a statement to The Hill in response to the subcommittee hearing.

Thursday’s hearing also came just one day after the FBI sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that went into more detail about the reasons why the agency revoked the security clearances from three agents, including two of those who testified at the subcommittee hearing Thursday.

According to a copy of the FBI letter obtained by The Hill, agent Brett Gloss, who did not testify at the hearing and has not been charged with a crime, was in a restricted area of the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, amounting to criminal trespass and “questionable judgment” that indicated he may not properly safeguard classified or sensitive information.

Agent Marcus Allen, one of the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing, had his security clearance revoked after the agency found he “espoused alternative theories to coworkers” about Jan. 6 “in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity,” including sharing a theory that federal law enforcement had infiltrated the crowd.

“It appears I was retaliated against because I forwarded information to my superiors that questioned the official narrative of January 6th,” Allen said in the Thursday hearing. He also said the FBI’s assertion that his supervisor “admonished” him was inaccurate. 

The FBI also found that one case related to Jan. 6 was closed after Allen said he did not find any relevant information about a subject — but that case was later reopened after another FBI employee found relevant information that was publicly available. That person assaulted a Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6, the agency said.

At one point in the hearing, Democrats stumbled in an attempt to push back on the witnesses’ credibility when Sánchez asked Allen to address a Twitter account with the name “Marcus Allen” that had retweeted a tweet asserting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) staged the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Allen responded that it was not his Twitter account — and that he did not agree with the message, condemning the violence at the Capitol on that day.

The FBI said agent Stephen Friend had his security clearance revoked after he acknowledged that he “publicly released sensitive FBI information on his personal social media accounts without authorization,” participated in unapproved media interviews, and secretly recorded a meeting with FBI management.

Friend testified to the committee that after raising concerns to his superiors with how the FBI was handling investigations into Jan. 6 subjects, the FBI suspended him without pay. 

Friend testified that he was assigned to attend a school board meeting and took down the information from attendees’ license plates in the parking lot. He also said that after he was suspended from the FBI, his investigations of child sexual exploitation material were handed off to local law enforcement rather than to another federal agent.

A third witness, Garrett O’Boyle, who had his security clearance suspended but not yet fully revoked, was suspended without pay after he raised concerns with his chain of command and then made disclosures to Congress. He had just made a move across the country for the job, and he choked up as he described the FBI holding his family’s belongings — including his children’s clothing — for six weeks before they could access them.

Jordan said that O’Boyle was the first whistleblower to tell the committee about the process the FBI was using to assess threats against school board members, which he said have resulted in zero prosecutions.

“When citizens in this country get to the point where they can call the most powerful law-enforcement agency in the world on their neighbor just because they disagree with them, that is chilling to the First Amendment rights of the people who are getting the FBI called on them,” O’Boyle said in the hearing.

Mike Lillis contributed. Updated at 6:16 p.m.

Cheney officially launches reelection bid: ‘This is a fight we must win’

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) formally launched her reelection bid on Thursday, seeking the Republican nomination for her seat for the fourth time amid rebukes from her own party.

"Some things have to matter," Cheney said in her announcement video. "American freedom, the rule of law, our founding principles, the foundations of our republic matter. What we do in this election in Wyoming matters."

"I'm asking for your vote because this is a fight we must win," she said.

Cheney has drawn the ire of former President Trump and his allies for voting for Trump’s second impeachment and serving as the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The committee is seen as illegitimate by a number of her Republican colleagues in the lower chamber.

First elected to the House in 2016, Cheney has faced primary challengers in each of her reelections but has won each previous time with large margins. In this year’s Aug. 16 primary, she will face a challenger, attorney Harriet Hageman, backed by Trump and his allies, who have viewed removing Cheney as a top priority.

Trump is slated to stump for Hageman at a Saturday rally, which will also include video addresses by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who became chairwoman of the House Republican Conference after Cheney was ousted from the role last year. Saturday’s rally will also feature speeches from Hageman, Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne and two more of Cheney’s House Republican colleagues, Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.).

Cheney made no direct mention of Hageman or her backers in the video posted Thursday, but she called for voters to “reject the lies” and “toxic politics.”

“When I know something is wrong, I will say so,” Cheney said in the announcement. 

“I won't waver or back down. I won't surrender to pressure or intimidation. I know where to draw the line and I know that some things aren't for sale,” she continued.

Cheney has deep ties in Wyoming — her father served as Wyoming’s sole congressman for ten years before becoming the secretary of Defense and later vice president. Cheney highlighted those ties in her announcement video, which included images of her dad and mentions of her family history in Wyoming, which she said dated back to 1852.

“In Wyoming, we know what it means to ride for the brand,” she said. “We live in the greatest nation God has ever created, and our brand is the United States Constitution.”

The Wyoming Republican Party has repeatedly admonished Cheney in recent months.

The state party censured her last February after Cheney voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6. and later voted in November to no longer recognize her as a member of the GOP.

On a national level, House Republicans last May decided to oust Cheney from her role as conference chair in a closed-door meeting by voice vote. 

Among the intense criticism from her own party, Cheney has continued to criticize her fellow GOP lawmakers. Earlier this month, she accused House Republican leadership of enabling “white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-semitism” after a mass shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people in a racist attack.

Cheney has boasted strong fundraising throughout her campaign, hauling in $2.94 million in the first quarter of 2022. But her influence will come to the test as she faces primary voters in a state Trump won by more than 40 points in 2020.