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Negotiations were underway between the two parties over whether Schumer may allow that time and give senators in both parties a chance to discuss the impeachment before it is dismissed. Michael Chertoff, a homeland security secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush, and constitutional scholars have also argued in recent days that the GOP investigation has not hit the threshold of impeachment. Ahead of the hearing, House Republicans and DHS clashed over whether Mayorkas will appear in person during the impeachment proceedings. Republicans wanted Mayorkas to attend this week's hearing, but he declined, citing a conflicting meeting with Mexican officials about border enforcement. The secretary agreed to testify, but asked to coordinate a time that works for his schedule.
House vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas fails, thwarted by Republican defections
A number of GOP senators laughed and Sens. Tom Cotton, Ark., and Rand Paul, Ky., banged on the table. In a statement released at the end of the Senate trial process, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said that "what’s happening at our southern border is completely unacceptable" and "the Biden Administration must do more to keep Montana and our country safe." Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joked with reporters that the impeachment trial was "awesome," calling it "the apex of civil life right now. … It was a miracle." “By voting unanimously to bypass their constitutional responsibility, every single Senate Democrat has issued their full endorsement of the Biden Administration’s dangerous open border policies," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his leadership team wrote. The Department of Homeland Security said Democrats were right to reject the impeachment articles.
What happens next in the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas? • Missouri Independent - Missouri Independent
What happens next in the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas? • Missouri Independent.
Posted: Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
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"Next to a declaration of war, impeachment is arguably the most serious authority given to the House and we have treated this matter accordingly," Johnson said in a statement after the vote. "Since this Secretary refuses to do the job that the Senate confirmed him to do, the House must act." A fourth Republican also switched his vote at the last minute to give GOP leaders the opportunity to bring up the vote again, making the final vote 214 in favor to 216 against. Legal experts on both sides of the aisle have also criticized the effort, saying Mayorkas' actions fail to meet the threshold for impeachment. Republicans vowed they would try again once House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who had been undergoing cancer treatment, returned to Washington.
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But Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, delayed the transfer of the articles for several weeks, initially to allow the chambers more time to complete work on government funding legislation. Upon returning from a two-week recess, the House speaker again postponed the transfer at the request of Senate Republicans, who requested more time to prepare. Democrats cast the impeachment effort as election-year political theater designed to draw attention to the situation at the border, one of the president’s biggest liabilities. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House. "After decades of Congressional inaction on our broken immigration laws, Secretary Mayorkas and a bipartisan group of Senators are working hard to try and find real solutions to address these challenges," the DHS memo said. "Instead of working in a bipartisan way to fix our broken immigration laws, the House Majority is wasting time on baseless and pointless political attacks by trying to impeach Secretary Mayorkas."
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The Senate is now voting on a motion from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., to move to executive session. "This is a different process than we would run other impeachments," he said. "I judge the danger of normalizing the House impeachment process as much graver than the 'dangerous setting of the process/precedent in the Senate.' There was nothing close to high crime or misdemeanor. ... Everyone knows it. It would be irresponsible for us to treat it as serious exercise." Schumer said afterward that Republicans were not “prepared” after they “denied our fair and reasonable offer and didn’t seem to know what to do." "History will judge what Republicans did tonight, and it won't be favorably. They threw the integrity of the House, the Constitution, as well as any glimmer of hope of working together, under the bus," he said in a statement. "The problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are not new," Mayorkas wrote last month in a letter to the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Mia Ehrenberg accused Republicans of playing “political games” and highlighted Mayorkas’s work on a bipartisan border bill in the Senate that the House GOP blocked. Republicans allege that Mayorkas willfully failed to enforce southern border laws, which they claim led to millions of illegal border crossings. Senate Democrats hope to quickly dismiss the House’s articles of impeachment against Mayorkas this week and move on to other matters. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ought to hold a full impeachment trial, accusing Schumer of trying to "sweep it under the rug." Schumer added, however, that he hopes to get an agreement with Republicans on timing, giving them the chance to offer votes on points of order before Democrats move to dismiss the charges. Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the impeachment trial — that’s only for sitting presidents.
The committee's action sets up a formal vote to impeach Mayorkas in the full House, which will come next week, according to Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. After the Senate convened as a court of impeachment, Schumer offered his plan to hold votes to dismiss the two articles of impeachment after limited debate. Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, immediately objected to Schumer’s proposal and accused the Democratic leader of “setting our constitution ablaze” by seeking to dispense with the charges against Mayorkas.
House Republicans advance impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
Senators are voting on Sen. Ted Cruz's motion to move into closed session so they can debate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., just spoke and said that senators know that they are obligated to take the impeachment trial process seriously. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., then raised a motion to declare the second article of impeachment unconstitutional as well. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, raised another motion to bring the Senate into closed session to allow senators to debate the articles. House Republican leadership released a statement accusing the Senate of "ignoring its constitutional duty to hold a trial." The White House praised Democrats for dismissing the impeachment."Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional," spokesperson Ian Sams said.
At a news conference with a group of Republican senators after the articles were delivered, the impeachment managers demanded that Schumer move forward with their case. Majority Democrats have said the GOP case against Mayorkas doesn’t rise to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” laid out as a bar for impeachment in the Constitution, and Schumer probably has enough votes to end the trial immediately if he decides to do so. While the Senate is obligated to hold a trial under the rules of impeachment once the charges are walked across the Capitol, the proceedings may not last long.
Mayorkas has been part of talks between the White House and a small bipartisan group of senators who have been negotiating a potential deal on immigration policy and border security. Some Republicans voiced doubt about impeachment at the time, saying Mayorkas' actions did not amount to impeachable offenses. Others said they wanted to wait for the committee's investigation to be completed before holding an impeachment vote.
In any case, Republicans would not be able to win the support of the two-thirds of the Senate that is needed to convict and remove Mayorkas from office. Democrats control the Senate, 51 to 49, and they appear to be united against the impeachment effort. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said last week he wasn’t sure what he would do if there were a move to dismiss the trial. “I think it’s virtually certain that there will not be the conviction of someone when the constitutional test has not been met,” he said. House Speaker Mike Johnson will send articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate after Congress returns. House Republicans have released two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The hearing comes after House leaders last year stalled an effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to force a vote on impeaching Mayorkas. The Georgia Republican pulled her impeachment resolution after she said she received assurances from House leaders that her earlier effort would move forward at the committee level. House Republicans argue that Mayorkas has failed to perform his duties and neglected to act in accordance with laws passed by Congress. The impeachment push also comes as the GOP has made border security a central theme ahead of the 2024 elections, seeking to capitalize on the issue after an unprecedented number of migrants crossed the southern border at the end of last year. On Tuesday afternoon, the 11 House Republicans named to prosecute the case against Mayorkas made the ceremonial walk across the U.S.
For the Democrats, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the administration’s attempt to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. With Democrats in the majority in the Senate, they would have little chance of passing legislation on their own but they could begin hearings and investigations and try to magnify any real or perceived failures of the Biden administration. Republicans needed a net gain of five seats in the House to achieve the 218-seat majority and a net gain of one to seize control of the Senate. The Senate has been in Democratic hands because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast a tie-breaking vote, in what has been one of the longest stretches of a split Senate in modern times. Republicans in both chambers are eager to put the issue of border security front and center during this election year. President Biden's handling of the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border remains a weak spot politically for him, according to recent public opinion polls.
The GOP leader said the president is now trying to turn the blame back on Congress for failing to update immigration laws. If approved, the charges would go to the Senate for a trial, though senators may first convene a special committee for consideration. “The problems with our broken and outdated immigration system are not new. … Our immigration laws were simply not built for 21st century migration patterns,” Mayorkas wrote, noting that he is involved in bipartisan talks with senators to come to an agreement on changes to immigration and asylum laws.
The last time that happened was in 1876, when the House impeached Secretary of War William Belknap over kickbacks in government contracts. A band of conservatives, led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, plans to throw up procedural roadblocks, try to delay the issue and put the spotlight on Democrats’ refusal to conduct a trial and hold Mayorkas accountable for what they view as his failure to secure the southern border. “He’s going to say that this is— the allegation did not constitute high crimes or misdemeanors and it shows that it’s just a policy dispute. The House impeached Mayorkas in February, with all but three Republicans voting in favor. That made him just the second Cabinet member in U.S. history to be impeached and the first since 1876. Senators will remain in their seats for the trial and will vote from their seats.
The vote is happening on the same night that New York is holding a special election to replace expelled former Republican Rep. George Santos, giving Democrats the opportunity to make the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House even tighter. Earlier, CNN reported that Republican leaders are confident that they will have the votes to pass the resolution, according to sources. This comes after House Republicans failed to impeach Mayorkas in a vote last week.
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