GOPers who scoffed at Trump’s impeachment trial now demand one for Biden staffer

WASHINGTON — Republicans are pushing for a full Senate trial against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was ousted from the GOP-controlled House earlier this year on charges that even some on the right called weak and bad. waste of time.

But many of the Republicans pushing for a trial against Mayorkas have backed efforts to throw out Donald Trump’s second historic impeachment trial since the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol before it even began. Only five GOP senators went against their party in voting to allow this process.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill this week, several conservative GOP senators said that if Democrats did not pursue a full trial against Mayorkas, Biden’s top US-Mexico border enforcement official, it would set a precedent and cripple the impeachment trial.

“Chuck Schumer intends to repeal the impeachment clause of the United States Constitution,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said of the Democratic Senate Majority Leader on Tuesday. “What Chuck Schumer is deciding is that the Senate no longer has to try impeachment, but instead can hide behind procedural games.”

Republicans also sought to avoid accusations of hypocrisy after voting to drop the case against Trump in 2021, when he was accused of inciting sedition. At the time, Republicans argued that since Trump was no longer president, holding an impeachment trial would be unconstitutional.

“There’s a difference between voting guilty or not guilty after the evidence is presented and impeaching members so that no trial takes place at all,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, after a reporter noted the 2021 vote to reject Trump’s impeachment trial.

Asked about GOP support for rejecting Trump’s impeachment trial, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told HuffPost, “I don’t remember that working.”

The January 2021 vote to impeach Trump was initiated by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who raised a procedural issue declaring the proceedings unconstitutional. Paul made the motion just a day into the proceedings, before the House could introduce its articles of impeachment against Trump.

Democrats have not yet announced how they plan to handle Mayorkas’ trial, which is set to begin early next week. But they are expected to drop the charges, which they called baseless and politically motivated, fairly quickly after the senators are sworn in as jurors.

“Senate Republicans know this is a joke,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “We need to get this out of the way as quickly as possible and get back to real business.”

Even Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.), a conservative Democrat who has often sided with Republicans on border issues, pushed back against efforts to remove Mayorkas, urging the GOP to focus on making its case to voters in the November election.

“If you’re unhappy, go to the polls,” Manchin said. “[The impeachment trial] it’s actually something I can’t wait to vote against.”

Republicans hope their efforts to oust Mayorkas will draw attention to President Joe Biden’s border policies and increase pressure on vulnerable Democrats running for re-election in red states, such as Sen. Jon Tester (Montang). Tester criticized the House impeachment of Mallorcas earlier this year, but he has since kept a low profile and declined to say whether he would vote to drop the case.

However, several Republican senators could end up joining Democrats in voting to reject the case, including Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).

“Once you go to impeachment, you sit there. For what? So can we say how wrong Biden’s immigration policies are? It’s not going to change the outcome,” a frustrated Murkowski told HuffPost on Tuesday, expressing her desire to work to defund the government and instead authorize U.S. intelligence programs.

Mayorkas, Romney said, should not lose his job for implementing Biden’s policies.

“He did a terrible job, but he followed the president’s direction and failed the constitutional test of a high crime or a misdemeanor,” he said.