Republican senators demand Mayorkas impeachment trial be held

With rumblings that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, plans to table and not even hold an impeachment hearing to try Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republican senators are demanding that the U.S. Constitution be followed and a trial be held.

Mayorkas was the first sitting Cabinet member to be impeached in U.S. history when the Republican-lef House did so Feb. 13. He was impeached on two counts: willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust.

U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, sent a letter this week to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, signed by several senators, saying it is imperative that the U.S. Senate Republican Conference prepare “to fully engage our constitutional duty and hold a trial.”

“According to multiple briefings by your staff, Majority Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats intend to dispense with the articles of impeachment by simply tabling both individually,” Schmitt wrote. “This is an action rarely contemplated and never taken by the US Senate in the history of our Republic.”

He said he wasn’t sure if the Senate rules would even “allow us to brush aside our duty in this manner,” but if the tables were turned Democrats would not allow such a maneuver. If Senate Republicans were in the majority and there was a Republican president, “the opposition would be fierce and the volume from Democrats would be deafening,” he said. He called on McConnell to oppose any efforts by Democrats “to shirk their constitutional duty, ensure that the Senate conducts a proper trial, and that every senator, Republican and Democrat, adjudicates this matter when the Senate returns.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, commended the House for impeaching Mayorkas, saying, he “aided and abetted and facilitated a criminal invasion of this United States,” citing 10.6 million foreign nationals who illegally entered the country under his watch.

“Americans are dying. Americans are being brutalized. We are seeing absolute chaos,” Cruz said.

Cruz told Fox News, “I believe the Senate should convict him. Why? Because he actively aided and abetted the criminal invasion of the United States. He aided and abetted Mexican drug cartels that have made billions of dollars exploiting human beings, undermining public safety in America and posing an incredible national security threat.” He also said the president and congressional Democrats “are accomplices in this chaos.”

The House impeaching Mayorkas is “an opportunity now for Senate Republicans to demonstrate we can back up the House and fight with Chuck Schumer to make sure we have a real trial and that he doesn't just give the proceeding the back of the hand and refuse to consider it at all.”

He also said Schumer is “trying to break over 200 years of Senate precedent by tabling the impeachment trial of Alejandro Mayorkas. This would deny the American people the chance to hear the evidence about Biden’s lawless open border policy.”

Schumer “doesn't even want to have a trial. He doesn't even want to have senators vote on guilty or not guilty," Cruz added. "What he's trying to do is simply table it, just put it aside. In over 200 years of our nation's history, the Senate has never once tabled articles of impeachment. That has never happened. Every single time the Senate has voted on either guilt or innocence or the House has withdrawn the impeachment."

Schumer, who is currently in Ukraine meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Friday that if the U.S. doesn’t continue to send billions of dollars to Ukraine, it will lose its war with Russia and there will be “dire consequences for the Ukrainian people, the U.S. and democracy and freedom.” He also called on House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, to send even more aid to Ukraine.

Johnson has said all funding considerations are off the table unless securing the U.S. border is prioritized.