Top GOP lawyer slams efforts to impeach Mayorkas: 'No current evidence that he is corrupt'

A prominent lawyer for Republican-aligned causes is now publicly arguing against his own party's attempts to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Republicans have argued that Mayorkas should be impeached and removed from his position due to his handling of the ongoing flow of migrants to the Southern border. In an op-ed for the Daily Beast, Jonathan Turley — who was one of the GOP's star witnesses in the impeachments of presidents Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — said that Republicans' doubling down on the impeachment of Mayorkas was a "slippery slope" that they would be "wise to avoid."

"There is no jurisdictional question for Mayorkas, but there is also no current evidence that he is corrupt or committed an impeachable offense," Turley wrote. "He can be legitimately accused of effectuating an open border policy, but that is a disagreement on policy that is traced to the President."

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Turley chided his party for pursuing impeachment over what essentially amounts to "policy-based judgments." He wrote that while he personally feels President Biden has been "dead wrong on immigration," that the electorate "will soon have an opportunity to render a judgment on those policies in the election. He emphasized that policy disagreements shouldn't be the basis for impeachment proceedings.

"The courts have long recognized that presidents are allowed to establish priorities in the enforcement of federal laws, even when those priorities tend to lower enforcement for certain groups or areas. It is a matter of discretion," Turley wrote. "Mayorkas has carried out those policies. What has not been shown is conduct by the secretary that could be viewed as criminal or impeachable."

"What Mayorkas is guilty of is maladministration. He has failed to secure the Southern border and has long denied the gravity of this crisis, including refusing to call it a crisis even as daily and monthly crossings reached unprecedented levels," he added. "None of this means that a cabinet member cannot be impeached. However, not like this. Not for maladministration.

The only cabinet secretary in US history to have been impeached was William W. Belknap, who was President Ulysses F. Grant's fourth Secretary of War in 1876. While the House voted in favor of impeachment, Belknap was ultimately acquitted in the US Senate.

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Click here to read Turley's full op-ed (subscription required).