1 of 3 | Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland” at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Nov. 2023. The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday delayed sending articles of impeachment against him to the Senate. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
April 9 (UPI) — The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday delayed sending articles of impeachment to the Senate against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas until Monday in order to help Republicans in their argument ahead of a possible trial.
“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN.
“There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial,” Johnson’s office said.
House Republicans originally had planned to send over the articles of impeachment to the Senate on April 10.
“We are ready to go whenever they are,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday, saying that Senate Democrats are ready to act on the Mayorkas articles of impeachment in the chamber, which is controlled by Democrats 51 to 49.
“We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible,” the New York Democrat said Tuesday amid ongoing questions as to how some moderate Democrats up for re-election this year may end up voting.
On social media, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican up for re-election this year, claimed that Schumer “doesn’t want to hold the Mayorkas impeachment trial because it will show how bad the crisis truly is.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, echoed the sentiments of Cruz, saying that Schumer “wants to ignore this responsibility” to act on the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, despite many viewing the charges as being politically motivated.
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