▶ Watch Video: House speaker faces removal bid as articles of impeachment for Mayorkas delivered to Senate.
Washington — House Republicans presented the articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on Tuesday, kicking off a confrontation over an impeachment trial that’s been brewing for weeks.
More than two months after the lower chamber voted to impeach the Cabinet secretary, House impeachment managers walked the articles over to the Senate in a ceremonial process that triggers the start of the Senate’s role in the matter.
“The managers on the part of the House of Representatives are present and ready to present the articles of impeachment,” Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, one of the House impeachment managers, said as he began reading the impeachment articles on the Senate floor.
The upper chamber is compelled by Senate rules to convene as a court of impeachment after the articles have been transmitted. Though the House voted to impeach Mayorkas in February in a historic vote that marked the first time a Cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years, House leaders opted to wait until after a government funding fight to present the issue to the Senate. And although they intended to begin the process last week, Senate Republicans made a push to delay the proceedings until this week amid concerns over attendance.
But even after the GOP push to delay the articles’ transmission, the duration of the trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where the effort is widely seen as a political stunt, has not been determined.
Many Republicans in Congress want to punish Mayorkas for the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, claiming that the secretary has failed to enforce the nation’s laws and stop tens of thousands of migrants from crossing the border.
DHS has denounced the effort as “baseless,” saying that House Republicans “continue to ignore the facts and undermine the Constitution” with the impeachment push.
