The inability of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week to name a single case of domestic terrorism that his department has referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution has outraged Republicans and amplified their calls for Mayorkas to resign or be impeached.
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During testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Mayorkas reaffirmed his assessment that “domestic violent extremism represents the greatest terrorism-related threat to the homeland.”
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., pressed Mayorkas for data on any referrals he has made to the DOJ on the grounds of domestic terrorism. Mayorkas did not offer any, saying he would provide it after the hearing.
Steube told Fox News Digital he hasn’t heard back from DHS, and he’s doubtful he’ll ever get a response.
In interviews with several GOP lawmakers following the testy exchange, Republicans accused the Biden Administration of overstating or even fabricating the threat of domestic terrorism as a way to avoid the real issue of the surge of migrant border crossings that have reached historically high numbers.
“It tells you that they haven’t referred anybody from Homeland Security to DOJ on domestic terrorism or White nationalism-related charges,” Steube told Fox News Digital. “And it just goes to show you that the narrative that the Biden administration is trying to create that the No. 1 threat to the homeland is White nationalism and domestic terrorism isn’t true.”
Steube supports Mayorkas’ impeachment if the GOP retakes Congress.
“They’re trying to avoid the clear threat to our democracy and to the safety and security of American people at the southern border,” Steube said.
There were more than 1.7 million migrantencounters in FY 2021, and FY 2022 is on pace to exceed that, with what is expected to be more than 1 millionencounters in the first six months of the fiscal year alone. At least 23 people coming across the southern border in 2021 were on the terror watch list.
“Democrats are absolutely gaslighting the American people,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said of Mayorkas’ domestic terrorism claims. “I do not believe that is the biggest threat to our homeland. Our biggest threat is the southern border and the invasion that is taking place.”
Boebert backs impeachment and Friday authored legislation to defund another Mayorkas’ initiative — the “Disinformation Governance Board,” which is designed to root out misinformation.
Rep. Jim Banks, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, accused President Biden’s homeland security chief of spreading falsehoods. Banks already led a letter with 130 fellow Republicans, including GOP leadership, that questioned Mayorkas’ “suitability for office.”
“The Biden administration continues to shamelessly lie to the American people and uses ‘disinformation’ as a label to slander and discredit their critics,” Banks, R-Ind., said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Mayorkas’s inability to sight a single case of White supremacist terrorism, despite claiming it’s the single greatest threat to the nation, is exactly why DHS has created a new ‘Disinformation Governance Board.'”
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., scolded Mayorkas for focusing more on U.S. citizens than the “criminals and potential terrorists” crossing the border.
“His goal is to stigmatize Democrat political opponents by accusing them of being domestic terrorists but couldn’t name a single prosecution referral made to the Justice Department,” Perry told Fox News Digital. “He should be securing our nation from the invasion on our southern border and protecting Americans, instead of acting as the handmaiden for the messaging machine of the radical left.”
