Senate Democrats voted late on Wednesday to declare the two sets of articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden‘s Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayokras to be “unconstitutional.” This move ended the Senate’s impeachment trial before lawmakers could hear evidence presented by House impeachment managers.
The two votes, orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), were adopted along party lines—except for the first set of articles on which Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) abstained. Schumer’s procedural move marked an anti-climatic end to the Mayorkas impeachment process, which began in February of this year when the House of Representatives adopted the two formal articles against Biden‘s Homeland Security Secretary.
Republican members of the Senate attempted to head off – or at least drag out – the Democrat’s maneuver to end the trial with a series of procedural votes and constitutional points of order. Despite the efforts of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), John Kennedy (R-LA), and even Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to shame Democrats into allowing a trial to move forward, Schumer held his caucus together and defeated the Republican procedural moves.
Among the Democrats backing Schumer’s votes to deem the articles of impeachment as “unconstitutional” were vulnerable Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
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