Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) took to the Wall Street Journal Wednesday to slam his Republican colleagues over a failed vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
"Impeachment not only would fail to resolve Mr. Biden’s border crisis," Gallagher wrote, "but would also set a dangerous new precedent that would be used against future Republican administrations."
Mayorkas would have been held criminally responsible for southern border policy and his impeachment would have been only the second in history of a cabinet secretary.
It failed after several Republicans, Gallagher included, expressed skepticism over the project, but GOP leadership moved ahead anyway. Even if had passed, securing conviction in the Senate would have been almost impossible.
Gallagher skewered his fellow conservatives with a thorough analysis of articles of impeachment he said made no sense.
"The first article of impeachment lays out in grueling detail Mr. Mayorkas’s manifest incompetence," Gallagher wrote. "But incompetence doesn’t rise to the level of high crimes or misdemeanors."
The Republican lawmaker argued "maladministration" has never been a valid standard for impeachment.
The second article, which accused Mayorkas of obstructing the investigation, was basically the same as the articles of impeachment against former President Donald Trump in 2019, Gallagher wrote. He added that the GOP had rejected the argument on the grounds it was too premature.
"Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable," Gallagher concluded. "It would only pry open the Pandora’s box of perpetual impeachment."