Washington — GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia backed off plans to force a House vote on a second resolution targeting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with impeachment, saying she received assurances from House leaders that an earlier effort will proceed at the committee level instead.
House lawmakers blocked Greene's first effort to impeach Mayorkas earlier in November, instead voting to send the resolution to the Homeland Security Committee. Eight Republicans voted with all Democrats to send the motion to the panel, which is investigating Mayorkas for his handling of the situation at the border.
Greene introduced her latest resolution to impeach Mayorkas on Wednesday as "privileged," setting a two-day deadline for the House to act on it. But plans to take up the resolution were shelved Thursday afternoon. Greene said she was assured by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green that the process would move forward in committee.
"There were members that were upset that we weren't going through the process. That was upsetting to them, but again, we need to be doing this, we need to move forward," she told reporters at the Capitol. "And so I got guarantees, so we will move forward with impeachment."
Greene declined to comment on the timeline for the committee to act but said, "It's going to happen very soon."
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the committee, called the impeachment effort a "political stunt."
"Apparently, their baseless, so-called 'investigation' was just a shell game to justify a pre-determined, evidence-free impeachment over policy differences rather than any Constitutional grounds," he said in a statement.
Greene's latest seven-page resolution accused Mayorkas of violating federal law and the Constitution by failing to "maintain operational control of the border" and prevent an "invasion."
Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, who voted for the Democratic-led motion to refer the last resolution to committee, said Wednesday that Mayorkas is guilty of "maladministration, malfeasance and neglect of duties on a truly cosmic scale."
"But these are not impeachable offenses," he said on the House floor.
If Greene's impeachment push were to succeed, McClintock said he expected Democrats would move to impeach conservatives on the Supreme Court and Republican officials the next time they have the House majority.
"There will be nobody to stop them because Republicans will have now signed off on this new and unconstitutional abuse of power," he said.
Reps. Darrell Issa of California, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina — who all voted to refer the last resolution — said earlier this month that an investigation into Mayorkas should be allowed to be completed before an impeachment vote.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said earlier this month that Greene's impeachment measure was a "baseless attack" that is "completely without merit and a harmful distraction from our critical national security priorities."
"Every day, the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security work tirelessly to keep America safe. They need Congress to stop wasting time and do its job by funding the government, reforming our broken immigration system, reauthorizing vital tools for DHS, and passing the Administration's supplemental request to properly resource the Department's critical work to stop fentanyl and further secure our borders," the spokesperson said.
Jaala Brown contributed reporting.
Caitlin Yilek is a politics reporter at cbsnews.com and is based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked for the Washington Examiner and The Hill, and was a member of the 2022 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship with the National Press Foundation.
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