Sen. Mike Lee and other Republicans push for Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be put on trial after impeachment

A group of Republican senators — including Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee — are pushing Senate leadership to put Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on trial after he was impeached by the House last week.

The House of Representatives passed two articles of impeachment for Mayorkas over violating “laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security,” as the Deseret News reported.

As the impeachment articles make their way to the upper chamber, Lee and others want “the Senate Republican conference prepare to fully engage our Constitutional duty and hold a trial,” according to a letter sent to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday.

The letter says McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., along with Senate Democrats, plan to table the articles of impeachment.

“This is an action rarely contemplated and never taken by the U.S. Senate in the history of our Republic,” the letter states. “It remains to be seen if the Senate rules will even allow us to brush aside our duty in this manner, but one thing is sure, if a similar strategy was contemplated by Senate Republicans when we were in the majority with a Republican occupying the White House, the opposition would be fierce and the volume from Democrats would be deafening.”

The letter calls on Senate leadership to join in the Republican efforts to “ensure that the Senate conducts a proper trial.”

McConnell has not commented on the letter. Last week, he told CNN he hasn’t taken a stance on the impeachment but said he doesn’t think “we’ll have two endless trials like we’ve had recently.”

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Apart from Lee, the signatories on the letter included Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Braun of Indiana, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

Axios reported that Lee and Cruz met last week with Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who is responsible for interpreting rules and processes, to argue against tabling the impeachment articles.

Cruz in a Sunday appearance on Fox News said Mayorkas should be convicted “because he actively aided and abetted the criminal invasion of the U.S.”

“Joe Biden and congressional democrats are accomplices in this chaos, that is unfolding in our country,” he said.

Schumer responded to Cruz’s remarks on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying the Texas senator “wants to do nothing on the border” while noting that Cruz “voted against a bipartisan bill to strengthen border security.” He was referring to the bipartisan border deal that many Republicans in the House and the Senate declared “dead on arrival.”

Schumer said last week he plans to install Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the president pro tempore, to over oversee the impeachment proceedings, which are set to begin on Feb. 26.

Related

• Utah congressman switches vote to ‘no’ on Mayorkas impeachment at the last minute — for this reason

• House committee passes impeachment articles against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas