WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives will delay sending the Democratic-majority Senate its impeachment charges against President Joe Biden’s top border security official until next week, a House spokesperson said on Tuesday.
It took two tries by the House in February to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, finally doing so on a 214-213 vote. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made Biden’s border security performance a top campaign issue amid record numbers of immigrants arriving at the southern border with Mexico.
The House charged Mayorkas with failing to enforce U.S. immigration laws and making false statements to Congress, charges he denies.
“To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week,” instead of the previous plan to send them on Wednesday, said Taylor Haulsee, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a statement.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer told reporters: “We’re ready to go whenever they (Republicans) are. We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible.”
Several senators and aides have said they expected Schumer to engineer a quick dismissal or similar procedural maneuver.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz told reporters that a speedy dismissal would mean that “Schumer is deciding that the Senate no longer has to try impeachments but instead can hide behind procedural games.”
In 2021, Cruz and 44 other Senate Republicans worked to allow votes on dismissing Trump’s second impeachment.
The Mayorkas impeachment comes as a House attempt to impeach Biden was faltering for a lack of evidence. Many Democrats see that probe as retribution for Trump’s two impeachments by the then-Democratic controlled House. Both times the Senate failed to convict Trump.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Gabriella Borter; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Stephen Coates)
