Rep. Tom McClintock defended his vote last week against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, explaining to Newsmax on Monday that the attempt "dumbs down" the standard enshrined in the Constitution.
The California Republican told Newsmax's "National Report" that his party's effort to throw out Mayorkas "dumbs down the standard of impeachments and assures that it will be a constant fixture in our national life whenever the White House is held by one party and the Congress by the other.
The attempt to impeach Mayorkas failed 216-214 last week as two other GOP members joined McClintock in voting with the Democrats to block the move, while another Republican flipped his vote to "no" seconds before the vote closed as a procedural move that permits the party to bring the legislation back at a later date.
McClintock said that when he made these same arguments in the Trump impeachments, he was "cheered by conservatives and yet those very same arguments are now jeered."
The representative made it clear that "Mayorkas is guilty of maladministration on an entirely cosmic scale."
But, he said, "the problem is, that's not grounds for impeachment. We know this, because the founders specifically considered it and rejected it. Instead they chose the narrow grounds of high crimes and misdemeanors. Those are actual crimes using the office. They did not want policy and political disputes turning into impeachment, and that is exactly what is happening here."
He also reiterated that failure to enforce the law "is not the same as breaking it. That's not just my opinion. That's the opinion of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court in the recent Texas case. Enforcement, even if it is entirely inadequate or incompetent, is within the constitutional powers of the president."
He stressed that "it can only be fixed by replacing the entire administration with one that is devoted to securing our borders and defending our people and upholding the rule of law. And that is not something that can be done by Congress. It can only be done by the American people at the ballot box at the next election."
When asked about the argument that lying to Congress is an impeachable offense and that Mayorkas did so by stating that the border is secure, McClintock disagreed, saying, "You can't punish people for their opinions, even if they are foolish opinions, and that is an opinion. It all depends upon how you define" the term "securing the border."
McClintock made clear that is "stretching the Constitution way past its breaking point and cheapens the whole process."
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