Opinion | Rep. Dan Goldman: My Republican colleagues are wasting the Senate’s time

UPDATE (April 17, 2024, 4:35 p.m. ET): Democrats in the Senate voted that both impeachment articles did not rise to the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors," making them unconstitutional and putting an end to the trial.

Democracy is under attack at home and abroad. On Saturday, the antidemocratic regime in Iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones at our democratic ally, Israel, while Russia simultaneously sent the same Iranian-designed drones into Ukraine. On Monday, Donald Trump became the first former president to go to trial as a criminal defendant.

Yet on Tuesday, House Republicans determined that the best use of the Senate’s time at this moment of international crisis is to hold a trial for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on legally-deficient, fact-free and constitutionally baseless allegations of violating his oath of office. The Senate should dismiss these farcical, partisan charges immediately to preserve our Constitution, protect our democracy and focus on the important legislative work that Congress must do.

In nearly 240 years of our Constitution’s history, there have been four Senate trials for the impeachment of a president of the United States — and half of those were against former President Donald Trump. There has not been an impeachment trial of a Cabinet secretary in approximately 150 years — and that was on allegations of bribery. In fact, House Republicans have not pointed to a single impeachment in history that did not involve the abuse of official authority for personal gain — before this one.

In a nutshell, Secretary Mayorkas is charged with failing to comply with several immigration laws that prior Republican administrations and the Supreme Court have determined to be impossible to fully execute with the limited resources available. No court of law — much less the Supreme Court — has determined that Secretary Mayorkas failed to adhere to any of the laws charged by Republicans.

In other words, there is no crime or misdemeanor, much less a high crime or misdemeanor to warrant impeachment. At best, House Republicans can claim a policy disagreement with how Secretary Mayorkas has tried to handle the influx of migrants at the southern border.

In their naked politicization of the border, House Republicans have demeaned and denigrated the impeachment clause of the Constitution to such a degree that any future Cabinet secretary can be impeached if the House majority disagrees with their policies. That is a dangerous precedent.

The irony of this impeachment should not be forgotten. While Republican members of the House Homeland Security Committee, on which I sit, were moving to impeach Secretary Mayorkas for failing to adequately address the situation at the southern border, the secretary was on the other side of the Capitol, negotiating bipartisan legislation in the Senate to address the situation at the southern border.

But in order to provide election fodder for Trump, House Republicans barreled through with this bogus impeachment. Three of my Republican colleagues courageously stood up to Trump and supported the Constitution — joining Democrats in a bipartisan vote against impeachment — which caused the articles to fail the first time, before the GOP mustered an additional vote to pass the bill.

The impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas is a dark moment in the history of the House of Representatives. Luckily, our Constitution places ultimate responsibility for conviction or acquittal on the Senate, which should swiftly dispatch with these lawless articles of impeachment without spending precious time on a trial for bogus allegations that, according to Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, simply do not allege or provide evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor.

Like Secretary Mayorkas, every senator swears an oath to uphold the Constitution. The only proper way to honor that oath is to immediately dismiss these articles of impeachment, which wholly fail to allege an impeachable offense and denigrate the Constitution. Congress cannot waste time on partisan exercises designed to achieve political gain when the country and the world are depending on us to govern.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com