Senate Democrats quickly dismissed impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, voting to rule each of the two impeachment charges unconstitutional on the trial's first day.

What You Need To Know

  • Senate Democrats successfully dismissed impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, voting to rule each of the two impeachment charges unconstitutional
  • All Republicans voted no on the questions of dismissal, bar Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who voted present on the first charge and voted against the second charge
  • Senate Republicans orchestrated several votes to delay the trial weeks or months and regroup, but failed to keep their quest afloat as the impeachment trial ended just hours after it began
  • The two articles argued that Mayorkas not only refused to enforce existing law but also breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure
  • The House vote was the first time in nearly 150 years that a Cabinet secretary was impeached

All Republicans voted no on the questions of dismissal, bar Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who voted present on the first charge and voted against the second charge.

“As suspected, the Republicans proved this afternoon that this whole impeachment was nothing more than a political show,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said at a press conference on Wednesday evening. “What we saw today was a microcosm of this impeachment since day one: hollow, frivilous political. And we felt very strongly that we had to set a precedent that impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements."

"If we allowed that to happen, it would set a disastrous precedent for Congress to throw our system of checks and balances into cycles of chaos," he added.

Senate Republicans orchestrated several votes to delay the trial weeks or months and regroup, but failed to keep their quest afloat as the impeachment trial ended just hours after it began. The impeachment inquiry launched by House Republicans and urged on by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., failed spectacularly as the country barrels towards an election in November that will decide control of the White House and Congress. A separate impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has so far been fruitless.

“Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional," said White House spokesperson Ian Sams in a statement. "President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas will continue doing their jobs to keep America safe and pursue actual solutions at the border, and Congressional Republicans should join them, instead of wasting time on baseless political stunts while killing real bipartisan border security reforms.”

The impetus for the trial of Mayorkas, who was in New York City on Wednesday, was an argument from Republicans that Biden has been weak on the border as arrests for illegal crossings skyrocketed to more than two million people during the last two years of his term — though they have fallen from a record-high of 250,000 in December amid heightened enforcement in Mexico. Democrats say that instead of impeaching Mayorkas, Republicans should have accepted a bipartisan Senate compromise aimed at reducing the number of migrants who come into the U.S. illegally.

“[Schumer] has argued that Secretary Mayorkas’ defiance of federal immigration law and active aiding and abetting of the worst criminal invasion in our nation’s history does not constitute a high crime or misdemeanor,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said as he called for a closed Senate session to deliberate on the proposed dismissal of the impeachment charges. “The only rational way to resolve this question is to actually debate it, to consider the Constitution and consider the law.”

Schumer argued Republicans "instead of spending so much time and energy on this meritless impeachment, worked with Democrats on border reform then we might have actually gotten something done." He touted the bipartisan immigration reform proposal that fell apart earlier this year.

The two articles argued that Mayorkas not only refused to enforce existing law but also breached the public trust by lying to Congress and saying the border was secure. The House vote was the first time in nearly 150 years that a Cabinet secretary was impeached.

“The Senate is going to do what the Senate considers to be appropriate. As that process proceeds, I’m here in New York City, Wednesday morning, fighting online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” Mayorkas told reporters at the New York City event focused on children’s online safety.  “I will be in Washington, D.C., this afternoon and the reason I will be in Washington, D.C., this afternoon is because that is where my office is and I have more work to do.”

Biden has called the effort a “blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship.”

“The Senate will not hear the House managers present the details of their case against Secretary Mayorkas, that he willingly neglected the duties of his office and willingly lied to Congress about the extent of that failure. Likewise, we will not hear the secretary’s representatives present the vigorous defense to which he’s entitled,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said before a failed attempt to block Schumer’s efforts. “This process must not be abused, it must not be short-circuited. History will not judge this moment well.”

Johnson delayed sending the articles to the Senate for weeks while both chambers finished work on government funding legislation and took a two-week recess. Johnson had said he would send them to the Senate last week, but he punted again after Senate Republicans said they wanted more time to prepare.

After the trial ended on Wednesday, Johnson told reporters that Mayorkas was the "most dangerous in terms of his policy implementations of any Cabinet secretary in the history of the United States" and that he assumed, without offering evidence, that migrant men entering the country were part of "terrorism cells set up around the country, maybe in a community nearby."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the impeachment effort a "charade" and said Republicans moved forward with it to appease far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is now threatening to try to oust Johnson as he pushes for foreign aid bills she opposes this week.

Besides Murkowski, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said in a statement after the trial ended that he disagreed with the dismissals, but he did not believe Mayorkas' implementation of Biden's "disastrous border policies" reached the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors.

The impeachment trial is the third in five years. Democrats impeached President Donald Trump twice, once over his dealings with Ukraine and a second time in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump was acquitted by the Senate both times.

Spectrum News’ Dan Rivoli and the Associated Press contributed to this report.