Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Impeachment Trial Of Secretary Mayorkas

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the impeachment trial of Secretary Mayorkas, which will commence this afternoon. Senator Schumer said that the charges brought fail to meet the standard of high crimes and misdemeanors and that the Senate should dismiss the charges. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

This afternoon, Senators will come to the floor and be sworn in as jurors in the impeachment trial of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Yesterday, the Senate received the impeachment House Managers, who read the two articles against the secretary.

Today, the trial will commence, and we will be in our seats as jurors for the third time in four years. But this time, Senators will preside as jurors in the least legitimate, least substantive, and most politicized impeachment trial in the history of the United States.

The charges brought against Secretary Mayorkas fail to meet the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. To validate this gross abuse by the House would be a grave mistake and could set a dangerous precedent for the future.

For the sake of the Senate’s integrity, and to protect impeachment for those rare cases we truly need it, Senators should dismiss today’s charges.

So, when we convene in trial today, to accommodate the wishes of our Republican Senate colleagues, I will seek an agreement for a period of debate time that would allow Republicans to offer a vote on trial resolutions, allow for Republicans to offer points of order, and then move to dismiss.

Let’s not kid ourselves about what’s going on today: the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors and everything to do with helping Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

Secretary Mayorkas has not been accused of treason or accepting bribes or unlawfully attacking our elections or anything of the sort. He has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. 

He did not blackmail a foreign power to dig dirt on a political opponent. Nor did he incite a violent mob to wage an insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power.

Instead, the hard-right wants to exploit the supremely serious matter of impeachment for the sake of cable news hits and content for social media. This is an illegitimate and profane abuse of the U.S. Constitution.

The Framers were clear: impeachment should never be used to settle policy disagreements. Legal scholars from across the ideological spectrum have agreed to the same for decades. Even the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, the darling of the conservative intelligentsia, argued a few months ago that “A policy dispute doesn’t qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor.”

If House Republicans want to have a debate about the border, Democrats are glad to have it.

But instead of wasting time on impeachment, we should debate bipartisan legislation to secure our border once and for all.

In fact, that is precisely what we tried to do in this chamber just a few months ago.

I worked with a handful of Democrats and Republicans to draft the strongest border security bill to come before the Congress in decades, before Donald Trump and the hard-right killed it in its tracks. It was everything that Republicans could have wanted and more: a bill to hire more border patrol agents, reform asylum, fight the fentanyl crisis, and create brand new powers for the President to close the border.

It was strong, strong stuff and the National Border Patrol Council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board all threw their support behind our bipartisan bill. If both chambers would have voted on it, I am certain it would have passed and be signed by the President.

But that’s precisely what Donald Trump and the hard-right were afraid of: instead of providing a solution to the border, Donald Trump and his MAGA radicals want to exploit the border for political gain.

And today, with this trial, MAGA radicals want to likewise exploit our constitution and try to gain an edge on the campaign trail.

It is beneath the dignity of the Senate to entertain this nakedly partisan exercise, one that both conservative and liberal legal scholars agree fails to meet the high standard demanded by impeachment.

So I will say it again: impeachment should never – never – be used to settle policy disagreements. That would set a disastrous precedent for the Congress and could throw our system of checks and balances into endless cycles of chaos.

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