WASHINGTON — Senators will open the impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday afternoon, but it’s expected to look nothing like the full-blown Senate trials Donald Trump faced in 2020 and 2021.
Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, are expected to quickly move to dismiss or table the two impeachment articles, which would require only a simple majority vote. Meanwhile, Republicans want to drag out the process and make it as politically painful as possible for the other party.
There is no scenario in which Mayorkas will be convicted. None of the Senate’s 51 Democrats have said they support impeachment, and even some moderate Republicans have expressed openness to tabling the articles after some debate, arguing that Mayorkas’ conduct does not rise to the level of impeachment.
Senate President Pro Tem Patty Murray, D-Wash., will preside over the trial. At 1 p.m. ET, she and the 99 other senators will be sworn in as jurors. Both sides were working Tuesday to come to an agreement on a process that could include time for limited debate and votes on Republican-led motions, a Senate source said. But unlike in the Trump trials, which both took longer than two weeks, Democrats could finish the Mayorkas trial as early as Wednesday evening.
“What I hope happens is that there will be an opportunity at least for some discussion once we are sworn in, and how long that is and what that entails is yet to be determined, but I would rather not go straight from swearing everybody in to, boom, we’re going to move to table,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who is skeptical of the impeachment push.
“At a bare minimum you have to have some process here,” she said, “and if you just move to table … you’re not only putting the Republicans in a challenging spot, but you’re setting the precedent that this is what we’re going to do with every future impeachment. Do we really want to do that?”
Tuesday, the 11 House GOP impeachment managers, or prosecutors, walked across the Capitol to the Senate chamber and hand-delivered the two articles, accusing Mayorkas of failing to enforce immigration laws and secure the border, as well as lying to Congress under oath, including by saying the U.S. border with Mexico is “secure.”
After they read the articles on the Senate floor, the managers joined conservative senators at a news conference where they demanded a full trial and said a motion to quickly dispense with the articles would be unprecedented.
But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who has led the GOP push for a full trial, said it would be “acceptable” if the Senate referred the articles to a special impeachment committee.
“Look, I know a number of us would prefer to have a full trial on the floor, but both are acceptable,” Lee told reporters, adding that a select committee “conducts a trial and then, after it completes its work, the matter falls back to us” in the full Senate.
“Either one would be acceptable,” he said.