WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 Speaker Mike Johnson will delay sending the House's articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate this week as previously planned after Republican senators requested more time Tuesday to build support for holding a full trial.
The sudden cast fresh doubts on the proceedings, the historic first impeachment of a Cabinet secretary in roughly 150 years. Seeking to rebuke the Biden administration's handling of the southern border, House Republicans but delayed sending the articles while they finished work on government funding legislation.
Johnson had planned to send the impeachment charges to the Senate on Wednesday evening. But as it became clear that Democrats, who hold majority control of the chamber, had the votes to quickly dismiss them, Senate Republicans requested that Johnson delay until next week. They hoped the tactic would prolong the process.
While Republicans argued Tuesday that forgoing a full Senate trial would break precedent, most Senate Republicans when Donald Trump, the former president, was impeached a second time on charges he incited an insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Their effort to halt the proceedings failed. Trump was ultimately acquitted in the Senate trial.
鈥淥ur members want to have an opportunity not only to debate but also to have some votes on issues they want to raise,鈥 said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican Senate leader. Under procedural rules, senators are required to convene as jurors the day after the articles of impeachment are transmitted for a trial.
鈥淭here is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial," Johnson鈥檚 spokesman, Taylor Haulsee, said in a statement announcing the delay.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. D-N.Y., who has decried the impeachment push as a 鈥渟ham,鈥 suggested Democrats still plan to deal with the charges quickly.
"We鈥檙e ready to go whenever they are. We are sticking with our plan. We鈥檙e going to move this as expeditiously as possible,鈥 Schumer said.
鈥淚mpeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements,鈥 he told reporters earlier Tuesday.
House Republicans charged in two articles of impeachment that Mayorkas has not only refused to enforce existing law but also breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure.
Democrats 鈥 and a few Republicans 鈥 say the charges amount to a policy dispute, not the Constitution's bar of high crimes and misdemeanors.
鈥淯ltimately, I think it鈥檚 virtually certain that there will not be the conviction of someone when the constitutional test has not been met,鈥 said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
Romney said he was not sure how he would vote on the Senate鈥檚 process but wanted to at least express his view that 鈥淢ayorkas has done a terrible job, but he鈥檚 following the direction of the president and has not met the constitutional test of a high crime or misdemeanor.鈥
Still, with elections approaching, Republicans want to force Congress to grapple with the Biden administration's handling of the southern border as long as possible.
鈥淚 think there are a lot of Democrats who really want to avoid the vote. I don鈥檛 blame them. I mean, this is the number one issue on the minds of Americans,鈥 Thune said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is facing a tough reelection bid in Ohio, called the impeachment trial a 鈥渄istraction" and pointed to Republican senators rejecting a bipartisan deal aimed at tamping down the number of illegal border crossings from Mexico.
鈥淚nstead of doing this impeachment 鈥 the first one in 100 years 鈥 why are we not doing a bipartisan border deal?鈥 Brown said.
Prior to Mayorkas, only one U.S. cabinet official had ever been impeached. Secretary of War in 1876. A House investigation found evidence that he had received kickback payments while administering government contracts.
Belknap resigned, but the Senate still held a trial. The votes on all five impeachment charges against Belknap fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for a conviction.
