Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Impeaching Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, for High Crimes and Misdemeanors; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protecting Health Care for All Patients Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This impeachment resolution was supposed to be our second rule of the day. We had an emergency meeting last week in the Rules Committee about fixing SALT. Everybody hurry up, it is an emergency. Better do it right away so we can vote quickly. Then--get this--last night a change was made to pull their emergency bill from the schedule. It was such an emergency that Republicans decided it is not an emergency at all.

Not only did their bill not even fix the problem that they, themselves, created, it is not even going to come to the floor now because of their inability to govern. This majority is so incompetent, they couldn't even manufacture a fake vote to pretend New York Republicans are good at legislating.

We wasted hours last Thursday at the Rules Committee debating a rule that has now been pulled from consideration--and for what? Will the gentleman from Texas tell us next that he is glad he had to sit through a hearing on a rule his leadership can't even bring up because they are so bad at governing? This Republican-led House is an unmitigated disaster. I would say it is a clown show, but that would be a disservice to actual working clowns.

That brings us to the second emergency rule. Mr. Speaker, impeachment is one of the most solemn, serious, somber things that we can do in this body. It is not something that ought to get thrown around lightly or invoked when you disagree with someone or you don't like their policies or you think they are doing a bad job.

It is something that should happen after a grave constitutional offense has been committed, a crime against the Republic. The Founders in Article I reserve it only for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Consequently, today, I am very confused because our Republican colleagues have presented zero evidence for impeachment. This could be the first time in American history an impeachment will go to the floor of the United States House of Representatives with no evidence, no proof, no elements of a crime, nothing at all.

You don't have to take my word for it. Listen to the lead Republican for immigration policy, our colleague, Tom McClintock. He says: ``The problem is they [the Articles] fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed. In effect, they stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable. . . .''

Another Republican, Ken Buck, says: Secretary Mayorkas did not commit an impeachable offense and is not guilty of high crimes or misdemeanors.

These are not my words. These are your fellow colleagues, Mr. Speaker, openly admitting that these vague, unprecedented Articles of Impeachment trivialize this process and make a total mockery of this institution. What does this impeachment have to do with fixing our challenges at the border? Nothing at all.

They say this is about securing the border, and their plan to secure the border is to impeach the guy responsible for securing the border and replace him with--now wait for this, wait for it--they aren't sure. The chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security couldn't tell us during our Rules Committee meeting who will replace Secretary Mayorkas if he were removed. I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

For months and months and months, Republicans have said that they would shut down the government, they would default on our debt, refuse to do anything unless we passed a border bill. Well, good news. Senate Republicans worked out a border bill, and the person who negotiated it for Republicans, Senator Lankford, was someone Donald Trump endorsed. Donald Trump said that Senator Lankford is ``strong on the border.'' Therefore, I am shocked by the Republican rejection of Senator Lankford's bill.

Before we even saw what was in it, before the ink was even dry on the discussion draft, Donald Trump came out, and he ordered them to kill it. He ordered them to do nothing to fix our broken immigration system. They would rather let chaos prevail than work with Democrats to have a conversation about a path forward.

Here is the truth, Mr. Speaker. Republicans simply do not want to participate in government. They want to create chaos. They want to create confusion, and they want to create a campaign issue for Donald Trump going into the next election. They are not interested in solving problems. They only want to gain power.

That is the real dereliction of duty here: House Republicans' refusal to address our challenges at the border because Donald Trump told them he wants a crisis so he can help his campaign, so he can hide from his crimes.

Well, they own this now. Republicans own this now. They own the border. They own the fentanyl crisis. They own it all because they refuse to behave like adults. They are acting like spoiled, rotten children who got what they want and still can't take ``yes'' for an answer, but they own all of this now.

If anyone needs more proof than that, look no further than the sponsor of this resolution--Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA extremist who amplifies Holocaust deniers, who said 9/11 was a hoax, who says wildfires are started by Jewish space lasers. That is the legislative and intellectual force behind this impeachment resolution. In fact, if it passes, she is going to be an impeachment manager on the floor of the United States Senate. God help us.

It is just more proof that this is fraudulent, unconstitutional garbage, but Donald Trump wants another fraudulent impeachment, another distraction from his own legal troubles, another excuse to kill a bipartisan border deal instead of working across the aisle to get something done.

Here we are, because Trump calls the shots around here. He directed Speaker Johnson and extreme MAGA Republicans not to work with Democrats to address challenges at the border. One thing we know, Republicans work for Trump, not for the voters. They worship and they work for Donald Trump, who doesn't care about anybody but himself. They are frightened to death of the former President.

Mr. Speaker, Secretary Mayorkas is a good man, a decent man, someone who is trying to do his job despite the fact that Republicans refuse to give him the tools needed to do what they are asking him to do. He is an honorable public servant who respects law enforcement and takes seriously his oath of office and his obligation to uphold and enforce the law.

In smearing his good name, Republicans are only impeaching themselves and showing that all their rhetoric about the border has been nothing more than a bunch of BS.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas just took almost 10 minutes--10 minutes of my life which I will never get back--and still didn't get it right, which is basically that this move to impeach Secretary Mayorkas is a sham. There is no basis for this.

Just because you don't like the guy or disagree with the policies of this administration is not a reason--it is not a high crime and misdemeanor. It is not a reason to move forward on impeachment.

I am listening to the gentleman and also my colleague from Texas. Republicans are really good about complaining about things, talking about what the problems are. We agree with some of the things that have been highlighted, that they are problems. What my Republican friends are not really good at is actually solving a problem or getting to yes on anything.

The gentleman from Texas said: Oh, we are asked to consider a Senate bill that the Senate hasn't acted on. Wait a minute. The Speaker of this House of Representatives has already said he will not have a vote in this House, no matter what happens in the United States Senate.

Donald Trump, the guy you are all afraid of, has been making calls saying: You better not do this. You better not do this.

The author of this Senate bill--again, I haven't read it all--there is lots of stuff in it that gives me heartburn, from what I can tell, but the guy who wrote it was a Senator from Oklahoma who Donald Trump says is strong on the border.

I will repeat what I said before: What we are doing today does nothing to help anything at the border--not a thing, not one thing.

Any opportunity to do something requires working in a bipartisan way to move a bill forward, which apparently my Republican friends here in the House do not want to do.

That is a shame, but here is the deal: You now own this. This is a problem that you are maintaining, that you have deliberately decided that you will own, because you will do nothing.

You are blocking any attempt for any kind of legislation to come to this floor that has a chance of passing in a bipartisan way and getting signed into law. You are doing it. Even the Border Patrol union has endorsed what the Senate is doing.

I haven't read the whole thing yet. I bet you none of you have either. Even before the ink was dry on the draft copy, Trump gave you the orders to kill it, and that is where we are.

Complaining about a problem, I get it. Maybe it used to be good politics, but here is what I am predicting. The American people are watching. They are now seeing how this works. If we want a bill, if we want to work in a bipartisan way, there is a bipartisan coalition that developed in the Senate, led by a very conservative Republican Senator, and they come up with a bill. As soon as they do: No, we don't want to solve the problem. We want to continue the problem for political purposes.

So now you own all of this. You own all of this.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Leger Fernandez), a member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, reasonable Republicans and even The Wall Street Journal editorial board have written that this impeachment does not qualify as high crimes and misdemeanors.

The board wrote: ``Grandstanding is easier than governing, and Republicans have to decide whether to accomplish anything other than impeaching Democrats. . . . [I]mpeaching him accomplishes nothing beyond political symbolism.'' That is right. It is political symbolism. It is political theater.

Our immigration system is broken. We have been saying it, and we have been offering up a bipartisan solution that Republicans have refused to take up.

They just blew up a bipartisan deal in the Senate. They refuse to provide Secretary Mayorkas the resources and legal changes he needs to reform the immigration system so our border is secure, our policies are humane, and our country is richer, thanks to the immeasurable contributions of our immigrant workforce.

Instead, we have a clown show directed by Marjorie Taylor Greene. If we vote for this sham impeachment in the House, she will have the power to march over to the Senate and stop all their work. She will stop work on a budget that we need to keep our government open. She will stop work on the farm bill, which my rural communities need. She will stop work on policies to lower costs and expand the middle class.

Extreme Republicans have answered The Wall Street Journal's question: Do they want to govern? They don't want to govern. They want chaos, chaos at the border, chaos in Congress. They put chaos over people.

They always put politics over people. We cannot trust them to reform our immigration system in a bipartisan manner.

They continue to use immigration as a political bulldozer to destroy and divide. Their abuse of this solemn impeachment process shows us we cannot trust them with our Constitution. We cannot trust them.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Does he agree that we need to change the law if we are going to change enforcement?

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Mr. McGOVERN. I am using Dr. Burgess' words from 6/18/2018 when he said: We know that to change enforcement we must change the law.

Then he went on to talk about immigration bills that we might consider in Congress, and he talked about the importance of legislation, and this is how democracy works.

So the bottom line is, Republicans are really good about complaining but they are not so good at legislating. They are not so good at getting things done. When things begin to move in the direction where we may get something done, then they back away and they say no. They can't get to yes on anything.

That is not leadership. That is not governing. That is, frankly, incompetence. When Trump was President my friends were saying one thing, and now that Biden is President, they are saying another thing.

Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is if we are going to get something done, we need to come together in a bipartisan way. That is what has begun to happen over in the Senate.

For the life of me, I do not understand why the Speaker of the House of Representatives, why my colleagues on the Republican side, one after another after another do not want to do anything.

Well, you know what, if you do not want to do anything, that means you are satisfied with the status quo and you own this problem. This is a problem of your creation because we are trying to fix it and we are trying to work in a bipartisan way.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 12, a bill that would ensure every American has full access to a central reproductive healthcare, including abortion care.

Far too many States have enacted laws to either ban some or all abortions, which many Republicans have declared numerous times is their goal.

Mr. Speaker, again, the gentleman from Texas confuses me because not too long ago--and I will use one of his quotes--he said: ``President Trump has presented a clear path forward; however, he cannot solve this crisis alone.''

Those are the gentleman's words.

Congress must stand ready to put partisan politics aside and pass meaningful solutions, but now all of a sudden Joe Biden can do it alone?

I mean, when Trump was President, he needed Congress, according to the gentleman, to give him the ability to be able to do what he wants on the border. Now, all of a sudden, it is a different story because it is a different President.

Mr. Speaker, let me also address something that the other gentleman from Texas mentioned in his 10 minutes of remarks when he said something about this isn't about politics.

I would point out that in April of 2023, Chairman Green, who is the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, promised Republican donors that he would produce an impeachment case against Secretary Mayorkas-- before donors.

According to a recording of Chairman Green's remarks to campaign contributors, he said: ``On April 19, next week, get the popcorn-- Alejandro Mayorkas comes before our committee, and it's going to be fun.''

Chairman Green also said: ``That'll really be just the beginning for him.''

The chairman said those things 2 months prior to the committee formally announcing its so-called investigation--2 months prior, Mr. Speaker.

He already promised his Republican donors that he would deliver impeachment charges.

To be clear, this entire impeachment process has had a predetermined outcome. This has nothing to do with a legitimate case for impeachment, but it has everything to do with Republicans' mission to distract, deflect, and exact revenge for President Biden winning the 2022 election.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I am very distressed about is that many of my Republican colleagues who are upset that Donald Trump lost the last election and they were not able to overturn the free and fair results of that election, they are upset that they didn't get their way, and they weren't able to overturn the results.

So now this is kind of a continuation of that effort to deny the legitimate results of the election. This in many respects is a continuation of what happened here on January 6, and it really is sad.

There is another election coming up in November. I predict that my friends will understand better then that their policy of obstruction, impeachment, distraction, and not wanting to solve problems, I think they will realize that when people go to the ballot box, that is not what they want.

The American people want us to work together to get something done. We have a serious situation at the border. We are trying to provide President Biden with the tools to be able to act. Just as my friend said that Donald Trump needed the legislative tools to be able to get what he wanted to get done--and unfortunately, notwithstanding some very impressive bipartisan cooperation in the Senate--my friends here have decided to reject everything; anything that might solve the problem; anything that might ease the situation at the border; anything that might help our Border Patrol agents, anything that will do anything to be able to solve this problem they are against.

It is pathetic that that is the state that we are in right now.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that this is not about Secretary Mayorkas or a high crime and misdemeanor. It is about a policy disagreement with President Biden.

Again, it is interesting to point out that when Trump was President, he couldn't do things because Congress didn't give him the tools. Biden is asking for more tools, and my Republican friends don't want to do anything.

Mr. Speaker, I have a memo here, released today on the arguments regarding impeaching Secretary Mayorkas, offered by the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, Mr. McClintock.

In listening to my friends on the other side of the aisle, surely you would assume that the chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, the lead Republican on immigration issues, would conclude in his memo that this impeachment is necessary and warranted. But, no, you would be wrong.

In fact, he concludes the exact opposite, and Mr. McClintock has said he will vote ``no'' on impeaching the Secretary.

Now, I would ask unanimous consent to put the entire memo into the Record, but it is so exhaustive in its analysis of how this impeachment is a bunch of garbage, that the memo exceeds the page limit for the Congressional Record.

Let me just read a quick excerpt instead.

He writes: ``The problem is that they fail to identify an impeachable crime that Mayorkas has committed. In effect, they stretch and distort the Constitution in order to hold the administration accountable. . . .''

``Stretch and distort'': Those are the words of the Republican chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, again, I thank my colleague from California, who came to the well and basically called it as he sees it. He told the truth.

We need some more truth around here. This is a sham. This is a dangerous precedent to go down.

To impeach somebody because of a policy disagreement, I tell you, this is not what we should be doing. I am hoping that there are Republicans on the other side of the aisle who still believe in the Constitution and in this institution and who will reject this.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, Michael Chertoff, the former Republican- appointed Homeland Security Secretary, the first-ever Homeland Security Secretary, has also come out in support of Secretary Mayorkas.

He said: ``I can say with confidence that, for all the investigating that the House Committee on Homeland Security has done, they have failed to put forth evidence that meets the bar.''

He went on to say: ``I don't agree with every policy decision the Biden administration has made. There are aspects of immigration strategy that are worthy of debate. But House Republicans are ducking difficult policy work and hard-fought compromise. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, everything we have heard from the other side has confirmed that this impeachment is a predetermined political stunt. Again, this is the first time in American history an impeachment could go to the floor of the United States House of Representatives with no evidence, no proof, no elements of a crime, nothing at all. Not my words, Mr. Speaker. It is your own colleagues who say that.

Here are a few more quotes. Jonathan Turley, a top Republican legal adviser, says: ``There is also no current evidence that he [meaning Secretary Mayorkas] is corrupt or committed an impeachable offense.''

Donald Trump's own impeachment defense lawyer, Alan Dershowitz: ``I urge principled Republicans who care about the Constitution to oppose those in their party who are seeking to impeach and remove Mayorkas based on nonconstitutional accusations.''

Republican leaders told their donors behind closed doors that they were going to impeach Mayorkas before they even began their sham investigation. They raise money off of this. They promised Marjorie Taylor Greene last year that they were going to impeach, no matter what, in order to help Donald Trump, to distract from his legal troubles and their own incompetence.

I get why they need to change the subject. Trump was the worst President in my lifetime, probably in history. He tried to overturn the election results when he lost. He said he wants to be a dictator ``on day one'' and he invokes Adolph Hitler, saying: Immigrants poison the blood of our country.

He had the worst jobs record since the Great Depression. He told everyone to drink bleach and take horse medicine during COVID. He has been indicted more times than elected and is currently in trial for 91 felony charges. That is after being ordered to pay $83 million after a jury of his peers decided he was a rapist.

That is the leader of the Republican Party. That is who this impeachment is about, Donald Trump; not Secretary Mayorkas, a good, honorable, decent man. Donald Trump is a corrupt, dishonorable, disgraceful man.

This is all about helping Republicans rile up MAGA voters and distracting from their inability to govern and address the critical issues facing our country.

Instead of legislating, they are being led by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the extreme MAGA chock-full-of-nuts caucus to pursue this baseless, extreme, and harmful impeachment charade that distracts from actually securing the border.

Do we have a problem at the border? Absolutely. Democrats and President Biden want real, comprehensive solutions to fix it, but the MAGA extremists have shown no interest in working with House Democrats to address the challenges facing the American people.

What we need is Republicans to stop playing political games. That is the exact opposite of what is happening here, the exact opposite of this cynical, reckless, impeachment stunt.

We are going to continue, as Democrats, to put people over politics, to fight for issues that matter, to try to lower costs, grow our economy, and, yes, to secure our border.

If Republicans decide they want to join us as partners in government to solve these challenges, we welcome that. If they don't, there is an election coming up in November.

I would say history is going to judge this Republican majority, but I don't think we need to wait for that. The voters are going to judge us all in November, and I think people are going to look at this fraudulent impeachment and they are going to look at Republicans' lack of accomplishments and they are going to vote them out because of their incompetence, their extremism, and their refusal to work with Democrats to address the challenges our country faces, including the border.

As I said before, this entire impeachment stunt is an absurd, cynical exercise in extremism. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this rule and a ``no'' vote on the underlying resolution.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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