Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
WASHINGTON — Utah Sen. Mike Lee on Tuesday called for a full Senate trial of impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, while Utah's other Republican senator, Mitt Romney, said there should be debate on the articles of impeachment before voting on how to proceed.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached Mayorkas in February, charging the Biden administration's top border official with "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and "breach of public trust" over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border — where apprehensions surged late last year. Representatives delivered the two articles of impeachment to the Senate Tuesday, where Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to try to dismiss or table the trial.
Schumer and other Democrats have defended Mayorkas and accused House Republicans of being motivated by politics and ideological differences over border policy.
"Every time there's a policy disagreement in the House, they send it over here and tie the Senate in knots to do an impeachment trial? That's absurd. That's an abuse of the process. That is more chaos," Schumer said.
Lee and other GOP senators blasted the proposal Tuesday, calling for a full trial of Mayorkas, saying it's "not only expected but required under the Constitution that we should do this."
"And what that means is we are sworn in; we're going to be sworn in tomorrow as senators performing the equivalent of the judge-jury function where we're both finders of fact and also imbued with the authority to decide questions of law relative to the impeachment trial," he said during a press conference alongside Republican colleagues Tuesday afternoon. "What all that presupposes is that we will reach a finding of guilt or innocence, guilty, not guilty. We shouldn't be sidestepping this."
Lee added: "Never in the history of the United States Senate have we addressed articles of impeachment with a motion to table."
Romney, who has previously been critical of the House impeachment effort and indicated he would vote against a full trial, said on Tuesday the Senate should debate the impeachment.
"Just simply tabling without any discussion would create a precedent that an impeachment from the House could just summarily be tabled" by an opposition party in the Senate, he said. "I'd like there to be some discussion, some debate, whether in committee or with the entire Senate. Or in some way, to make sure that we don't begin a wiping aside of articles of impeachment that come from the House."
Many House Republicans have accused Mayorkas of jeopardizing national security through his border policies which they say incentivize migrants to try to cross into the country at the southern border. But many Democrats say Mayorkas' actions do not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors" required for impeachment.
Mayorkas has denied the charges and has the support of President Joe Biden, and even some Republicans have said they have seen no evidence of illegal activities to back up the allegations.
The House has been slow to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate while it's built a case to prosecute the impeachment, waiting more than two months since the impeachment vote. The articles were expected to be delivered last week but were delayed after Senate Republicans requested more time.
As for what a potential trial could look like, Lee said he's open to working with the House impeachment "managers," and would be comfortable "even if it were a truncated period of a day or two or three or whatever is is ... if that means that we will ultimately reach a verdict. That is our job after all."
