Table Of Content
- House Republicans present Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate
- Have you heard the one about Trump? Biden tries humor on the campaign trail
- The Senate's role in impeachments
- Senate kills second and final Mayorkas impeachment article, voting now on ending trial
- Read the House GOP’s articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
- Louisiana officers wounded by gunfire in standoff …
The thing that we can do is we can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told CNN, adding it could “rise to that occasion” of an impeachment if Mayorkas is found to be “derelict” in his duties. Indeed, Republicans from swing districts are urging their colleagues to not rush into impeachment, which would be dead-on-arrival in the Senate and could turn the American people off if the party is perceived as overreaching. With no signs that Mayorkas is stepping aside, House Republicans are signaling they’re prepared to move ahead, even as a bevy of members are uneasy about the approach.
House Republicans present Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate
Johnson had said he would send them to the Senate last week, but punted again after Senate Republicans said they wanted more time to prepare. It’s exceedingly rare for a Cabinet secretary to be impeached, something that has only happened once in US history — when William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached by the House before being acquitted by the Senate in 1876. Yet it’s a very real possibility now after Kevin McCarthy — as he was pushing for the votes to win the speakership — called on Mayorkas to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. Washington — House Republicans postponed sending the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate until next week, amid concerns over the timing of an impeachment trial that Senate Democrats are expected to quickly move to dismiss. 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.
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The blink-and-you-missed-it trial marked the culmination of a mostly failed political gambit hatched by House Republicans seeking to cast the limelight on the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border ahead of the general election. Democrats and immigration experts have pointed to this provision as evidence of the overreach of the impeachment articles against Mr. Mayorkas. Asylum cooperative agreements are not under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, but the State Department — meaning it was Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and not Mr. Mayorkas who terminated them. "Catch and release" has become Republicans’ preferred term to describe the practice of allowing migrants into the United States pending their court appearances.
The Senate's role in impeachments
If the Senate’s not going to take up a properly formed past impeachment, that’s on them. “I don’t think we can do anything,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the effort to impeach Mayorkas, said in response to a question from The Hill shortly after Wednesday’s votes. And despite some Republican interest in plowing ahead with a push to impeach Biden, the road to do so appears increasingly closed off and many congressional Republicans say they’re ready to move on from all things impeachment. At a hearing with Mayorkas on Tuesday about President Joe Biden’s budget request for the department, some of the House impeachment managers previewed the arguments they would have made.
Angry Republicans called for several votes to delay the inevitable final outcome, but none of them passed as Democrats and three Independents held together. As the trial began, senators approached the front of the Senate in groups of four to sign an oath book that is stored in the National Archives. “For the sake of the Senate’s integrity and to protect impeachment for those rare cases we truly need it, senators should dismiss today’s charges,” said Schumer, D-N.Y., as he opened Wednesday’s session. "Instead of doing this impeachment — the first one in 100 years — why are we not doing a bipartisan border deal?" he said.
Read the House GOP’s articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas
Schumer: Mayorkas impeachment 'awful precedent,' 'abuse of process' - Yahoo News Australia
Schumer: Mayorkas impeachment 'awful precedent,' 'abuse of process'.
Posted: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 21:17:27 GMT [source]
Indeed, McCarthy has to balance his base’s demands for aggressive action with the concerns from more moderate members — many of whom hold seats in swing districts central to his narrow majority. But concerns about GOP attendance for what would likely be a late vote on Thursday seemed to give Republicans pause. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., spoke of the pain of migrants fleeing their home countries and urged Republicans to come to the table with solutions. Frustrated that Mayorkas would not appear Thursday, Green said the secretary is “stonewalling” the panel.
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No prior administration has ever detained every unauthorized border crosser, DHS has noted, and even hard-line restrictions like those implemented under former President Donald Trump were bound by resource limits that resulted in many getting temporarily released into the U.S. Impeachment rules generally allow the Senate majority to decide how to manage the trial, and Schumer has not said exactly what he will do. Biden said in a statement Wednesday that he "strongly supports" the package of bills, his first explicit endorsement of Johnson's plan.
In a pair of party-line votes, Democrats held that two articles alleging Mayorkas willfully refused to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and breached the public trust with his statements to Congress about the high levels of migration at the US southern border with Mexico were unconstitutional. On the first article, Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator from Alaska, voted “present”. House Republicans on Tuesday formally presented articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to the Senate, part of the party’s attempt to force an election-year showdown with the Biden administration over immigration and border security. The upper chamber is compelled by Senate rules to convene as a court of impeachment after the articles have been transmitted.
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But hours after the White House meeting, Trump signaled his skepticism toward any border deal, “unless we get everything” to shut down the migrants crossings, he wrote on social media. The White House, meanwhile, applauded Senate Democrats for dispensing with what it called a “baseless” case. “What Senator Schumer is going to do is fatuous, it is fraudulent and it is an insult to the Senate and a disservice to every American citizen,” said John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, at a press conference on Tuesday.
Though Mayorkas has long been a focus of Republican criticism of the White House's border policies -- testifying multiple times before Congress -- the Department of Homeland Security maintains that no high crimes or misdemeanor have ever been committed under the Biden administration. House Republicans voted to impeach Mayorkas in February over his handling of the southern border by a narrow margin after failing to do so on their first try. The senators voted against considering the first article of impeachment, with one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voting present. The Senate killed the articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday as the historic trial of the Cabinet secretary barely got underway. This is a reference to Trump-era policy more commonly known as Remain in Mexico, which required many migrants to wait on the Mexican side of the border for their immigration court dates.
Democrats, who control the Senate, have made clear their intention to quickly dispense with the articles, arguing that the politically charged proceedings amount to little more than a policy dispute with the administration. A two-thirds majority is needed to win an conviction in the Senate, an impossible threshold if all of the Democrats are united in favor of dismissing the charges against Mayorkas, who retains the support of Joe Biden. After Tuesday's ceremonial procession and presentation of the articles, the proceedings will not begin until Wednesday. Senators will be sworn in as jurors, turning the chamber into the court of impeachment.
It’s no surprise considering Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has been clamoring since last year for Mayorkas to resign or face impeachment proceedings. Articles of impeachment were filed in early January, but the GOP effort gained steam last week with a House Homeland Security committee hearing about the effect of U.S.-Mexico border policies. AP correspondent Mary Clare Jalonick reports Democrats could quickly end the trial by calling for votes to toss out the articles of impeachment. An outright dismissal of House Republicans’ prosecution of Mayorkas, with no chance to argue the case, is an embarrassing defeat for House Republicans and embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who made the impeachment a priority. And it is likely to resonate politically for both Republicans and Democrats in a presidential election year when border security has been a top issue.
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