Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., on Tuesday criticized Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas but said he will vote against a resolution to impeach him because Republicans have not identified an impeachable offense.
McClintock's announcement came after Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said last week he would also vote against the resolution on the same grounds, putting the measure in jeopardy in the House, which Republicans hold by a slim majority, The Hill reported.
"Clearly the founders worried that the power of impeachment could be used to settle political disputes and so searched for limiting language to avoid such abuse," McClintock wrote in a 10-page memo released Tuesday before the House was to vote on the impeachment resolution.
He said his colleagues have made a "compelling case" against Mayorkas in their two articles of impeachment, which charge him with "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and "breach of public trust."
McClintock also said that the case has also been made that the Biden administration "callously disregards the harm it is doing" by reversing the policies of the Trump administration on immigration and that the laws are "deliberately being minimized by poor enforcement."
However, McClintock wrote, the articles of impeachment "fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed," and that they "stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable for stretching and distorting the law."
McClintock further argued that impeaching Mayorkas opens the door for Democrats to take similar actions in the future while alienating the "vast middle" section of voters in the U.S.
McClintock added that Americans have historically taken a "dim view" of impeachments they see as politically motivated.
Impeaching Mayorkas would "delight" Republicans and anger Democrats, McClintock wrote, but it is the middle that will determine the upcoming election, which he called "the only true remedy to the border crisis."
McClintock's refusal to vote to impeach Mayorkas, along with Buck's, could put the measure in jeopardy. Even with a full contingent present, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.
McClintock had already indicated he would not vote to impeach Mayorkas, giving a floor speech last November in which he said Mayorkas' actions did not meet the necessary threshold.
"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 then. "There will be nobody to stop them because Republicans will have signed off on this new and unconstitutional abuse of power."