US Senate dismisses impeachment articles against Homeland Security secretary

WASHINGTON

The US Senate dismissed two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday.

The Senate voted 51-49 to adjourn the impeachment trial against Mayorkas.

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives sent articles of impeachment to the Senate.

In February, Mayorkas was charged by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives for "high crimes and misdemeanors, including his willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and his breach of the public trust," making him the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in almost 150 years.

Following the voting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate ignored the directions of the House, adding: "It's not a proud day in the history of the Senate."

House Speaker Mike Johnson said that "by voting unanimously to bypass their constitutional responsibility, every single Senate Democrat has issued their full endorsement of the Biden administration’s dangerous open border policies."

In a joint statement with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Rep. Elise Stefanik, Johnson said Mayorkas alongside President Joe Biden "has used nearly every tool at his disposal to engineer the greatest humanitarian and national security catastrophe at our borders in American history."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements.

"I felt that very strongly. This is the first impeachment I can recall. You look at history; none were done because there were policy disagreements.

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

The White House on Wednesday praised the Senate.

"Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional," said Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations.