Mayorkas impeachment case dismissed
Democrats vote down charges in short order
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday dismissed the impeachment case against Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, voting along party lines before his trial got underway to sweep aside two charges accusing him of failing to enforce immigration laws and breaching the public trust.
By a vote of 51-48, with one senator voting “present,” the Senate ruled that the first charge was unconstitutional because it failed to meet the constitutional bar of a high crime or misdemeanor. Republicans united in opposition except for Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the lone “present” vote, while Democrats were unanimous in favor.
Murkowski joined her party in voting against dismissal of the second count on the same grounds; it fell along party lines on a 51-49 vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, moved to dismiss each charge, arguing that a Cabinet member cannot be impeached and removed merely for carrying out the policies of the administration he serves.
“To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future,” Schumer said.
It took only about three hours for the Senate to dispense with the matter.
Republicans, for their part, warned that the dangerous precedent was the one that Democrats set by moving to skip an impeachment trial altogether, which they argued was a shirking of the Senate’s constitutional duty. They tried several times to delay the dismissal, failing on a series of party-line votes.
“Tabling articles of impeachment would be unprecedented in the history of the Senate — it’s as simple as that,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky.
McConnell did not mention that he voted in favor of an unsuccessful Republican effort in 2021 to dismiss a second impeachment case against former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol before the Senate held a trial.
Republican senators were outraged at Schumer’s maneuvering. Some accused him of degrading the institution of the Senate and the Constitution itself. Others beat their desks as they called for a delay of the trial for two weeks, until next month or even until after the November election. They accused Mayorkas of lying to Congress and impeding Republican investigations.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, visibly frustrated, rushed around the chamber trying to strategize with his fellow Republicans.
“The Mayorkas-Biden policies have led to the worst border crisis in US history,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber.
Mayorkas is the first sitting Cabinet member in United States history to be impeached. William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached in 1876, but he resigned just minutes before the scheduled vote.
Unlike Belknap, Mayorkas was never accused of corruption or of any crime other than carrying out immigration policies that Republicans oppose.
Democrats denounced the impeachment of Mayorkas as illegitimate and politicized. Legal experts have called the case against him groundless, arguing that the accusations against him do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. But Republicans pushed forward anyway in what was essentially a bid to blame the secretary for President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, which they contend have fueled a wave of illegal migration.
The votes came after Republicans spent much of the day railing against chaos at the US border with Mexico and blaming the Biden administration for it. Under Biden, crossings at the southern border have reached record highs.