Exclusive — Rep. Mark Green: Alejandro Mayorkas Has Willfully ‘Subverted the Laws Passed by Congress’

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has willfully “subverted the laws passed by Congress,” Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), who leads the House Homeland Security Committee, told Breitbart News Daily.

All 18 Republicans on the committee announced support for impeaching Mayorkas on Thursday, concluding that it is “unmistakably clear to all of us—and to the American people—that Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach Secretary Mayorkas.”

That recommendation came after what Green described as about five phases of a year-long investigation “into the conduct at the border.”

“And it’s very clear that Secretary Mayorkas has basically subverted the laws passed by Congress,” Green explained, describing it as “intentional.”

“It’s intentional. It’s willful. It is an executive branch that is refusing to follow the law and is inverting the law, and you cannot have a cabinet secretary who just disregards the coequal branch of government, completely disregards — and he also disregarded the judiciary branch as numerous court orders that basically said, ‘What you’re doing is violating the law. Stop,'” he said, emphasizing that one cannot “have a cabinet secretary that just chooses to do whatever they want.”

“We write the laws because this is what the Constitution says. They execute the laws as written. And so, we’re going to, you know, do a markup for impeachment articles and take them to the floor. Hopefully, they’ll pass committee. I’m pretty confident they will. And then we’ll go the floor and give everybody a chance to, you know, make their vote,” he said.

When confronted with critics who say Congress cannot impeach someone who did not break the law, Green provided a comprehensive explanation.

“So very clearly, the founders — we didn’t have a legal code back then. We didn’t have a criminal code, a very minimal criminal code at that point…I think the best founding father quote is when Madison was actually in the House, and they were forming the State Department, and he said — there was a lot of problems with why would we form this department, we could, you could have a bad leader in there — and Madison essentially says — and I’m paraphrasing — that if you had a bad person doing bad things in this department head, meaning the secretary, and a president refuses to remove — a bad president is his word — refuses to remove that bad individual, the Congress has the power to impeach that individual,” Green explained.

“And then there’s the court. The Supreme Court in Texas versus the United States. In that court ruling, they said, ‘Hey, the states don’t have standing here.’ Now, they did not make a decision on whether or not Mayorkas was lawless and violating the INA. They said: don’t have standing. The only…recourse in a case where that happens is impeachment. So the Supreme Court in that ruling — both in the dissent and in the concurrence on the decision — both justices said that the only recourse for a cabinet secretary who is refusing to do his job, refusing to obey the laws, and is disregarding a branch and a separate coequal branch of government is impeachment,” he continued.

“So I think they’ve made a ruling on it. The founding fathers are clear on this. It does not have to be a crime,” Green explained, later adding, “I am of the opinion that it is my duty to do this, and we are moving forward.”

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When speaking of the frustrations about how long this is taking, Green said he is also frustrated.

“The five phases were designed not only to convince eight Republicans in the House, but they were also to build the furor and educate the American people because we’re fighting against a media that just doesn’t care about the truth,” he said.

“They are isolated organizations, you know, out there that are telling the truth…but it’s minimal. And so this tsunami of false information has to be confronted with the truth. And it takes time in a situation where you have limited ability to get the information to the American people,” the congressman said, explaining that they planned this “very strategically…over a course of five phases.”

“We issued a report at the end of each phase; we issued a final report in December. It was all designed to educate the American people on one, what they’re doing and two, the impact to the country,” he said. “And so, we’ve done the due process, no one can say that Green, you know, did this, you know, willy nilly and bastardized the process.”

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