House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) would consider possible impeachments of President Joe Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and other officials if the regular committee investigation process found evidence of “impeachable malfeasance.”
Emmer spoke to Breitbart News on the matter of impeachment during an interview in his Capitol Hill office Wednesday as Biden remains mired in a classified documents scandal and as Republicans ramp up impeachment calls against Mayorkas over the border crisis.
Asked if he expects impeachment proceedings against Biden or other cabinet officials to be brought to the floor, Emmer first observed an absence of oversight of the Biden administration and then alluded to the recent revelation that Biden’s attorneys had come upon classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president being stored at his home in Delaware.
“The best disinfectant for corruption is sunlight, transparency, and there has been none, and there’s a lot of corruption in this administration, and outside of it by the way, relating to it,” Emmer said, noting what he described as a “double standard” for accountability between Biden and former President Donald Trump over “breaches of public trust, and maybe more.”
Emmer then pointed to Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) having already filed impeachment articles against Mayorkas this month and ripped into both Mayorkas and Biden “because they haven’t taken steps to secure” the southern border.
President Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas take part in a naturalization ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 2, 2021. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
“You can’t argue that [Mayorkas] has not been doing his job. He’s ignored the border. So has the president,” Emmer said. “It shouldn’t have been lost on anybody that Joe Biden doesn’t make one visit to the southern border until a new Republican majority is literally taking over in the House in Washington, DC. Then, he mysteriously suddenly finds religion and goes down to the border. … I think the investigation will— the function that we’re supposed to do will take place. ‘What have you done? What have you failed to do? Why have you failed to do it?’ Because we have an obligation to the American public, especially with — what is it — on average 300 fentanyl deaths a day in this country? They’re directly responsible for that because they haven’t taken steps to secure our southern border.”
Emmer added, “I’ll let the committee process do its work, but if the case is built, I would imagine that once that case is built, if it rises to the level of an impeachable malfeasance or misfeasance, high crimes and misdemeanors, yeah, it’ll come to the floor.”
Emmer clarified that Mayorkas is “the example, but if there’s other things, again, it’ll all go through regular order. It’ll all be transparent. I expect that the Biden administration will try to make this as difficult as possible.”
Emmer’s comments come as House Republicans, particularly those on the Judiciary and Oversight Committees, direct heavy focus toward investigating the administration following the GOP taking back control of the House after four years out of power.
Oversight is planning to delve into the foreign business dealings of Biden’s embattled son Hunter and examine possible conflicts of interest with those deals, as well as investigate the origins of the Chinese coronavirus and aspects of the government’s management of the virus.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden walk to a vehicle after disembarking Air Force One upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on August 16, 2022, as they return from vacation in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
Judiciary has targeted the Justice Department, DHS, big tech, and more. The committee, as of this year, also includes a new high-budget and powerful select subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government.” The subcommittee, led by Judiciary chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), will probe alleged civil rights violations by the Justice Department, FBI, intelligence communities, and other federal agencies.
Oversight and Judiciary, as well as the Intel Committee, also each quickly and aggressively took a role over the past week in probing Biden’s classified documents investigation, which Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to conduct.
Emmer said of the heightened focus on oversight, “The legislative branch of government has not been doing its job for more than two decades. Because we haven’t been doing our job on the fiscal side, every time you get a new administration, Republican or Democrat, you have a stronger executive who’s just taking action on their own. We need to do that oversight function to hold the executive branch accountable.”
Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.
