Republican U.S. senators are sounding the alarm over a purported plan by Senate Democrats to dismiss House impeachment charges against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The House was expected to deliver impeachment charges this week after voting to impeach Mayorkas in February. They rescheduled for next week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, changed scheduling on the Senate calendar. Schumer has called Mayorkas’ impeachment a sham and political ploy.
While Schumer has said there would be a trial and the matter would be resolved quickly, now he plans to table the impeachment trial using a Senate procedural move that needs only two Democrats to second it, they said.
When asked if he would file a motion to dismiss the impeachment charges in February, Schumer told reporters, “We’re going to try and resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements.”
Schumer was criticized by Republicans who argue House Democrats impeached former President Donald Trump twice for political reasons. The Senate held two trials, including one after Trump left office. Forty-four Republican senators voted it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try a president after he left office. In both trials, Trump was acquitted.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, expressed alarm about Schumer’s purported plan at a Tuesday news conference. Joining him were Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. Several senators subsequently issued separate floor statements. Republican House members and senators also continue to call on Schumer to hold a trial.
Kennedy filed Senate Resolution 623 to establish fair and efficient trial procedures for impeachment “according to longstanding Senate precedent.” He also said Senate Democrats were “going to try to take the articles of impeachment” the House passed with a majority vote “and toss them into the trash without hearing from either side.
“They don’t want to let the House impeachment managers make their case. They don’t want to let Secretary Mayorkas make his case. They just want to ignore the House’s evidence summarily, sweep it under the rug and move on. And that is wrong.”
Kennedy said the Senate “has never in its history tabled an impeachment. Never. In the more than 200 years that this body has existed, the House of Representatives has impeached an official 21 times, and we have never once tabled the impeachment. Not once.”
He said Schumer “may also try to dismiss these charges instead of tabling them, but that’s never been done before either. If the Senate dismisses these charges without a trial, it will be the first time in the Senate’s long history that it has dismissed impeachment charges against an official it has jurisdiction over without that official first resigning – and that’s a fact.”
Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked the resolution, the same day Kennedy raised concerns again at a Senate Appropriations hearing. He told Mayorkas the American people don’t trust him and he intentionally created the border crisis. Mayorkas refuted the claims as he has the impeachment charges brought against him.
Blackburn said Schumer was “playing politics” because “he has members that are very likely going to lose their seats and he does not want them to have to take a vote on this. He also knows that the border and the lack of border security is the number one issue with the American people.”
She quoted statements Schumer made about the necessity to hold Trump impeachment trials, saying he “fully realizes this is our constitutional duty … to hold a trial. But he is so power hungry the only thing he can focus on is the November elections.”
Marshall said regardless of when they receive the articles, Schumer “still plans on halting the process to stop an impeachment trial,” which is “significant” because “it would only take two Democrats to deny tabling this process in order to proceed with an impeachment trial.”
