Mayorkas’ impeachment trial turned into a farce

“This delay is an abuse of power and denies the president his day in court,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-Va.). one of the most pragmatic Republicans wrote on social media.. “Please send or exit!”

The next day, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) realized the error in this strategy and announced that she would send impeachment managers to the Capitol the following week and begin the trial in about four weeks. House vote.

So much for consistency in any form, after more than four years.

House Republicans on Wednesday failed to advance articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate, as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) had previously announced plans to do.

Instead, we live in a political world where Mr. Mayorkas’ most ardent opponents believe he should be convicted in a Senate trial. And those who have been removed from public office are those who are actually delaying the start of the trial.

Now, sometime next week, perhaps on Tuesday or Wednesday, the trial will finally begin, more than two full months after the House took the unusual step of voting to impeach a Cabinet member for the first time since 1876.

By impeaching Mr. Mayorkas, Republicans have turned Congress’ most powerful constitutional duty, the removal of executive branch officials for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” into a travesty of mismanagement and mismanagement.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-Va.), who spent the first three years of President Biden’s term as a key swing vote to frustrate liberal activists, said in a floor speech on Wednesday that Republicans had a hard time responding to the entire incident. Summarized the incorrect responses.Manchin pledged full support for the Democratic proposal. To quickly short a trial Once Johnson finally sent the articles and the senators were sworn in as jurors.

“Basically, I can’t wait to vote no on this and kill it as soon as it gets here,” he said.

The vote was originally scheduled to take place Thursday afternoon if the managers had distributed the article on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York has laid out a plan to follow a more than 100-year-old mandate to begin impeachment trials at 1 p.m. each day.

But Senate conservatives realized how quickly they could lose if they held the trial this week, and used back channels to plead with the House speaker to postpone the trial until next week.

In a stunning admission, these hardline Republican senators acknowledged how their efforts to oust Mr. Mayorkas had failed to gain traction, saying the Senate was too obligated to schedule Thursday afternoon’s departure. He explained that some Republicans may decide to leave town or agree to immediate removal from office. trial.

“We don’t want something like this to happen right before our members could be operating under the influence of jet fuel poisoning,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said at a news conference Tuesday. Ta.

Why fail on a Thursday when you can postpone that failure to 4-5 days later with no tangible benefit?

This failed impeachment effort is only made worse by the fact that the underlying conflict, the incoming migrant border crisis, stems from the single best policy issue on the Republican side. All polls show that independent voters who will decide November’s election are critical, giving Biden, Mayorkas and Democrats terrible ratings for their handling of border issues.

House Republicans’ effort to impeach Biden over financial misconduct by his family comes as witnesses face charges of secret dealings to Russia and sparking a global scandal to avoid prosecution here. During the process, it collapsed.

Instead, Mr. Mayorkas’s impeachment was entrenched as a major oversight trophy that House Republicans hoped would signal their incredibly weak support for the majority over the past 15 months.

Congressional Democrats, as well as a significant number of Senate Republicans, have never agreed with House Republicans’ claims that Mayorkas violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires the detention of immigrants subject to deportation. These critics and skeptics believe that, given the Cabinet Secretariat’s wide discretion to implement the law, this is essentially a policy debate, and that the way to address policy disputes is through elections.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who twice voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump, told reporters Tuesday that “the standard for conviction has not been met,” and said he would vote against Democrats at the start of the trial. He said there is a possibility that the charges could be dismissed.

This argument also applies to three House Republicans, which is why Mr. Mayorkas’ impeachment began in such a farcical way.

On February 6, Prime Minister Johnson and his leadership team rolled the dice to hold up the impeachment vote, believing only 211 Democrats were present for the vote, even though three aisle members defected. Despite this, they believed they would win 215-214.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York contacted the hospitalized Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas to get him on the floor in time for the secession vote. The House was deadlocked 215-215.

Rather than concede defeat, Johnson used the parliamentary tactic of starting over the next week, summoning House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) back to Washington, where he was recovering at home from a bone marrow transplant.

As long as Republicans held their votes early on the evening of February 13th, they only needed one more vote.

They are Democrats won the Long Island special election about two hours after Mayorkas was impeached by the narrowest margin possible, raising concerns that Democratic support would disappear. In fact, the Democrats won that race, and if the House had to vote again against Mr. Mayorkas now, and all members were present and voted as before, the articles of impeachment would again be It will likely be rejected by a tie vote.

Mr. Johnson quickly adopted Ms. Pelosi’s approach in handling articles of impeachment, but far outpaced the slow-moving Democrats of four years ago. House Republicans adjourned for two legislative recesses and spent nearly a month fighting over government funding.

On March 22, when the remaining funding bill was finally approved, the House again went into a two-week recess.

Finally, a timeline for the Senate to consider an impeachment trial was mapped out between Johnson and Schumer’s offices.

Senate Republicans have been bitterly divided over the past six months over issues such as the border and defense funding for Russia, but they have come to terms with nearly all supporting a plan to pursue a full-scale impeachment trial of Cabinet members.

Returning to the Capitol on Monday, Sen. Thom Tillis, RN.C., told reporters that he does not fully understand the House lawsuit against Mr. Mayorkas and questions its legitimacy. said he plans to vote to hold a full trial.

With the exception of Mr. Lee and a few far-right allies, Senate Republicans seem intent on winning credit for their vote for a full trial of conservative activists.

At the same time, their statements radiate a half-hearted quality, and deep down they are not even close to such prominent figures as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). It shows there is little desire to cede the Senate floor to MAGA senators. ), two of the House managers who would hear the case if it went to a full trial.

Every day so far this week, Republican lawmakers have lined up to give long speeches about impeachment and the border crisis.

Capito filed one of them Wednesday afternoon, noting that never before has an impeachment trial been dismissed from the beginning. She did not mention her vote in January 2021 to dismiss charges against Trump for the Capitol riot and called for a speedy trial or no trial at all for Trump’s first impeachment. It also did not mention the January 2020 statement.

“This time should be no different,” she said.