politics
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Wednesday dismissed all impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In doing so, he ended the push by House Republicans to remove the Cabinet secretary from office over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, ending his trial before the arguments even began.
Senators voted to dismiss each articles of impeachment and dismiss the trial, with Democrats arguing that the articles were unconstitutional. The first article accused Mayorkas of “willful and systematic refusal to comply with immigration laws,” and the second article accused him of a “breach of trust” for claiming the border was secure. The variety of votes was 51 to 48 and 51 to 49, each inside the party.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the House Republicans' impeachment didn’t meet “the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors” and will set a dangerous precedent.
“In the interest of the integrity of the Senate and to protect impeachment in the rare cases when we truly need it, senators should reject today’s charges,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said as he opened the session Wednesday.
Senate Republicans had supported full impeachment proceedings after the House narrowly voted in February to question Mayorkas over his handling of the border, saying within the two articles that he had “willfully and systematically” refused to pass immigration laws to implement.
House Republicans' outright rejection of the prosecution of Mayorkas without a chance to make the case is an embarrassing defeat for House Republicans and embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has made impeachment a priority has made. And it’s prone to have political resonance amongst each Republicans and Democrats in a presidential election 12 months by which border security is a top issue.
Republicans argue that President Joe Biden has been weak on the border as arrests for illegal border crossings rose to over 2 million people in the ultimate two years of his administration, although they fell from a record high of 250,000 in December amid tightened enforcement in Mexico are . Democrats say that as a substitute of impeaching Mayorkas, Republicans must have accepted a bipartisan compromise within the Senate geared toward reducing the variety of migrants entering the U.S. illegally.
On Tuesday, the House impeachment managers delivered the costs to the Senate, standing within the Senate well and reading them to an attentive audience. However, they didn’t have a likelihood to argue the case before the Senate dismissed it.
The historic nature of the trial – the primary time a Cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years – contrasted with the just about routine feel of the proceedings after senators had already sat through two impeachment trials against former President Donald Trump in 2020 and 2021 . And since a fast dismissal was almost inevitable, the Senate didn't even arrange for the occasion the chamber where tables for impeachment managers and defense attorneys are often positioned on either side.
Still, there was a little bit of the normal pomp. At the beginning of the trial, senators approached the Senate in groups of 4 to sign an oath book, which is kept within the National Archives.
Schumer called for the vote to dismiss the 2 charges after Republicans rejected a settlement proposal for the Senate debate and a number of other votes over Republican objections. Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt stood on the ground of the chamber and said Republicans wouldn’t accept Schumer's offer because Democrats would destroy “200 years of precedent” on impeachment by attempting to throw out the trial.
Angry Republicans called for multiple votes to delay the inevitable outcome, but none got here through as Democrats and three independents stuck together.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was frustrated, saying, “History will not judge this moment well.”
“This process cannot be abused,” McConnell said. “It can’t be short-circuited.”
At the identical time, Republicans similarly moved to dismiss former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial of 2021, weeks after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. All but five Republican senators – including McConnell – voted to finish it Trial on the grounds that it was unconstitutional because Trump had already left office.
After Democrats rejected the costs, Johnson and members of his House Republican leadership team said in a joint statement that “by voting unanimously to circumvent their constitutional responsibility, every single Democrat in the Senate expressed their full support for Biden's dangerous open borders policies.” government has expressed.”
Even if the Senate had held a trial, Republicans wouldn’t have been in a position to win the support of two-thirds of the Senate needed to convict and take away Mayorkas from office – Democrats control the Senate, 51-49, they usually remained united against the impeachment effort. Not a single Democrat within the House of Representatives supported it either.
Even some Republicans questioned the impeachment effort from the beginning. Utah Senator Mitt Romney had said for weeks that he was considering voting with Democrats to dismiss the costs, but ultimately voted for his own party. After the votes, he said he didn't imagine the costs involved serious crimes but didn't wish to dismiss them because “it's important to have some debate.”
Mayorkas, who was in New York on Wednesday to launch a campaign for kids's online safety, reiterated that he was focused on his department's work. “The Senate will do what it deems appropriate as we move forward,” he said. “I'm here in New York City on Wednesday morning fighting against online sexual exploitation and abuse. I’m focused on our mission.”
Department spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg said after the votes that the Senate's decision to finish the trial “clearly demonstrates that there was no evidence or constitutional grounds to justify impeachment.”
Johnson delayed sending the articles to the Senate for weeks while each chambers finished work on government funding laws and took a two-week recess. Johnson had said last week he would send it to the Senate, but he backpedaled again after Senate Republicans said they wanted more time to arrange.
At a hearing with Mayorkas on Tuesday about President Joe Biden's budget request for the department, a number of the House impeachment managers previewed the arguments they might have made.
Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, chairman of the House Homeland Security Panel, told the secretary that he has an obligation under law to manage and guard U.S. borders, and “during your three years as secretary, you have taken that oath.” “You have refused to comply with the laws passed by Congress and you have violated the public trust.”
Mayorkas defended the department's efforts but said the country's immigration system is “fundamentally broken and only Congress can fix it.”
The impeachment trial was the third in five years. Democrats have impeached Trump twice, once over his dealings with Ukraine and the second time in the times after the attack on the Capitol. Trump was acquitted by the Senate each times.
Schumer said the allegations against Mayorkas weren’t comparable to those against Trump and were designed to assist the previous president as he runs again this 12 months. He said the Republican allegations were about political disputes, not serious crimes, and that it was necessary to set a precedent.
“Secretary Mayorkas has not been accused of treason, taking bribes, unlawfully attacking our elections, or anything like that,” Schumer said. “He did not blackmail a foreign power to harass a political opponent. Nor did he incite a violent mob to revolt against the peaceful transfer of power.”
He called the Republican case “an illegitimate and profane abuse of the U.S. Constitution.”
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, acknowledged that dismissing the trial was “a different Senate trial,” but said that “the risk of normalizing what the House did is greater than the risk “To set a new precedent in the Senate.”
___
Associate Press author Elliot Spagat in San Diego, California, contributed to this report.
image credit : www.boston.com