While I was in Puerto Rico, I did my best to avoid the news, but I did check the headlines at least once a day, and I don’t remember seeing even one article about the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. As I tried to get myself back up to speed yesterday, I did not encounter a single mention of the upcoming trial. But this morning my computer crashed for some reason while I was in the other room making coffee. And when I rebooted, it reset an open window of the home page of The Hill and I saw their headline about Chuck Schumer moving quickly to dismiss the charges.
Senate aides say they expect Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to immediately dismiss the impeachment charges against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after the House impeachment managers present them next week.
One Senate GOP aide said Schumer is expected to schedule a vote on a motion to dismiss or a motion to table the charges…
…A Senate GOP aide who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter said Mayorkas’s impeachment won’t take up much time on the Senate floor.
“There’s not going to be a trial. I don’t think we’ll even get a resolution” to govern the floor process, said the aide.
I guess this doesn’t come as much of a surprise to top media rooms around the country which explains why they’re treating the whole subject as a non-story, but it’s a minor surprise to me. I thought the trial (and a subsequent verdict) might be unavoidable under the current interpretation of the Constitution and the rules. I thought Schumer would truncate the trial down to virtually nothing rather than just toss the case out unheard.
But consider that the Senate’s most conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has stated that the case against Mayorkas is “ridiculous” and he “just want[s] to get rid of it as quick as possible.” Consider also that Utah Republican Mitt Romney has indicated he will support dismissal. In fact, it’s possible that a motion to dismiss or table will get a handful of Republican votes.
It’s astonishing that the House Republicans have impeached a member of the cabinet and the Senate Republicans are basically fine with tossing the accusations in the garbage. The case is so weak, I think they’d prefer not to have to pretend they take it seriously. As Republican Susan Collins of Maine said, Mayorkas was merely “carrying out the [legal] policies of the White House.”
In a way, you could consider Senate Republicans’ complicity in dismissal a major story. But how do you make a story out of something like that? Headline: Senate Majority Leader dismisses impeachment articles without trial and literally no one cares!
If no one cares, they why should the reader care?
And how do things get to a point where something like this can happen? I follow politics closely, and I honestly cannot explain with any specificity what Mayorkas is supposed to have done wrong. But he was impeached, and that’s supposed to be taken seriously, right? I mean, I’d be inclined to agree with Speaker Mike Johnson.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the House impeachment managers urged Schumer in a letter to hold a full trial on the Senate floor.
“We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional duty to hold this trial,” they wrote. “To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.”
It speaks volumes that this appeal, which is rock solid on its own terms, simply is not compelling to the Senate Democrats, several Senate Republicans, the media, and likely the public. And it’s because they impeached the man for no discernible reason.
What kind of madness has overtaken us?
The sane thing here will prevail and the Senate will not waste its time.
Maybe Democrats have finally reached a point where they’ve decided that always bending over backwards, usually to their own detriment, in a herculean effort to always paint a turd gold does not inevitably lead to the turd attaining any sort of value. It’s still a turd. For years, hell, maybe for decades, if the Democrats have done anything it is respect the constitutional processes. In the face of Republicans brazenly and continually shitting on these same processes, and daring anyone to try to make them behave differently, Democrats have always done the whole “adult in the room” thing, and followed the rules. And now, in this case, they’re not. It’s the height of comedic irony that Mike Johnson is soiling his pants that the Democrats “are not following the rules”!!!! I mean, how fucking crazy it that Republicans suddenly give a shit about constitutional processes?
For those of us who care about the details of how a healthy democracy functions, sure, this might give us a moments pause. After all, the respect for norms and procedures has been the glue that has held all this together for a couple of centuries. But you know what? I feel kind of good that Democrats, and even a few Republicans, might finally say to the right wing nut jobs, “Hey, fuck you. We are not going to abide the crazy shit in this case. So all you wingers can just talk to the fucking hand. We have more important shit to do”.
I don’t know. It feels kinda good. I hope Schumer and the rest of them hold their ground.