Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday wrote to Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, demanding that the Senate hold an impeachment trial next month of Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary. The speaker called plans to quickly dismiss the charges against Mr. Mayorkas “a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people.”
In a letter signed by the 11 Republicans he named as impeachment managers to try Mr. Mayorkas, Mr. Johnson wrote that they planned to send over the charges on April 10, after the Senate returns from its Easter break. Senators in both parties, who serve as the jury for impeachment trials, have indicated that they do not want to sit through such a proceeding in the case of Mr. Mayorkas, notwithstanding House Republicans’ insistence on it.
The letter rehashed the accusations against the homeland security secretary, with signatories including Representatives Mark E. Green of Tennessee, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who introduced articles of impeachment against Mr. Mayorkas. The Republicans condemned what they called a “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and his breach of the public trust,” accused the secretary of lying to Congress, and blamed him for the state of the southern border with Mexico.
There is little doubt that the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, will side with Mr. Mayorkas. Leaders are expected to dispense with a trial quickly, either by dismissing the charges immediately or moving to a quick vote in which Republicans have no chance of securing the two-thirds necessary to convict and remove Mr. Mayorkas.
Mr. Schumer has called the impeachment effort a “sham” and “another embarrassment for House Republicans.”
