Live updates: Senate begins DHS Secretary Mayorkas’ impeachment trial

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he think this will be the end of the impeachment in the Senate, asking why there would be an incentive to go through with any future trials if Democrats dismiss this one.

“If they do what they say they’re gonna do here, this will be the end of the impeachment. They’re basically destroying impeachment and the Constitution,” he said.

In January 2021, 45 Senate Republicans voted to dismiss Donald Trump’s Jan. 6-related impeachment without a trial. That trial only occurred because they lacked the majority vote needed to block it, with five Republicans joining all Democrats against dismissing it.

The GOP votes to dismiss included many GOP senators who are now pushing for a Mayorkas trial, arguing that it’s an indispensable Senate tradition. That includes Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who said Tuesday: “The Senate has a clear obligation under the Constitution and 200 years of precedent: we need to hold a trial. We need to allow the managers to present the evidence. And then every one of us who is following the law should convict and remove Alejandro Mayorkas for aiding and abetting a criminal invasion of the United States of America.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has taken the presiding spot. She’ll call senators to the floor using a “quorum call” here soon.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he still feels the same as he did earlier today and expects the trial to wrap by midafternoon, otherwise there would be too many points of order.

“I’m not changing my dinner plans,” he told reporters.

The House approved 11 GOP impeachment managers, who will prosecute the case against Mayorkas in the Senate.

They are: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, the author of the impeachment resolution; Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee; Michael McCaul of Texas, a former chair of the Homeland Security panel; August Pfluger of Texas; Michael Guest of Mississippi; Andrew Garbarino of New York; Laurel Lee of Florida; and four members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus: Andy Biggs of Arizona, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Ben Cline of Virginia, and Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.

At each senator’s desk is a notepad and a copy of the impeachment articles. They also have a copy of the resolution that named the House impeachment managers.

Senators are making their way to the chamber.

The trial will have a “Wild West” feeling, a Senate sources tells NBC News. Schumer is expected to ask to unanimously pass a resolution to establish a procedure for the trial that would include:

• A period of debate among senators
• Votes on trial resolutions
• Votes on GOP points of order
• Votes on motions to dismiss the articles

Republicans, however, are expected to object to this, and then the Senate will enter an unstructured process, where Schumer would likely move to immediately table one of the articles.

Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside over the impeachment trial — that’s only for sitting presidents. Because Mayorkas is a Cabinet member, Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, D-Wash., will preside.

Beginning at 1 p.m. ET, she will be sworn in, and then she will swear in the 99 other senators as jurors. Senators will then sign the impeachment oath book, four at a time.

Mayorkas is not expected to attend the trial, nor are any defense attorneys.

Senators will remain in their seats for the trial and will vote from their seats. They must lock up their phones in their respective party cloakrooms during the trial.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor that tabling the articles “would mean declining to discharge our duties as jurors. It would mean running both from our fundamental responsibility and from the glaring truth of the record-breaking crisis at our southern border.”

“I, for one, intend to take my role as a juror in this case seriously, and I urge my colleagues to do the same,” he said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., an ally of former President Donald Trump, has dismissed the Mayorkas impeachment effort as “obviously dead on arrival” in the Senate and “the worst, dumbest exercise and use of time.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told reporters this month: “I don’t think the constitutional test has been met.”

Romney wouldn’t say whether he’d support a vote to table or dismiss the impeachment articles from the outset of the trial, saying he wanted to look at the legal process. “But I think there’s no question but that this is not going to result in a conviction, because the test of a high crime or misdemeanor being committed has not been alleged, and as a result of that, there will not be a conviction,” he said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she’d like “an opportunity at least for some discussion once we are sworn in” as jurors but suggested that the articles don’t rise to impeachment. “I just don’t see that it rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. And, instead, you have a Cabinet secretary that is fulfilling the policy of the administration.”

The House impeached Mayorkas in February, with all but three Republicans voting in favor. That made him just the second Cabinet member in U.S. history to be impeached and the first since 1876.

While it has been 148 years since the last successful impeachment of a Cabinet member, there have been several failed attempts in that time. Opening an impeachment investigation into a Cabinet member of the opposing party has become especially common in the past two decades.

Read more about past impeachments here.

Talks to get an agreement on how long senators will debate the impeachment and a deal on a number of votes on points of order were blocked last night after Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., objected to the proposal, a Senate source said. Schmitt may not be the only Republican who objected to the agreement.

Schmitt, who is a part of the group of conservatives demanding a trial, said in a statement to NBC News that he is objecting because he wants a full trial, and he will not “aid Senator Schumer in lighting the match to set hundreds of years of precedent, the Senate, and our very Constitution ablaze.”

“The Senate must hold a full impeachment trial of Secretary Mayorkas, or at the very least, refer the articles to an impeachment committee,” Schmitt said.

“Never before have articles of impeachment been tabled or dismissed when the subject was alive and still in office,” he continued. “The American people deserve to hear all of the facts and we must do our jobs, and I plan to fight to ensure that we do just that.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made the case for dismissing the impeachment as he opened the Senate this morning.

“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,” he said on the floor.

Schumer added, however, that he hopes to get an agreement with Republicans on timing, giving them the chance to offer votes on points of order before Democrats move to dismiss the charges.

The Senate convened at 11 a.m. ET and is working on passing a bill to reauthorize FISA Section 702, a key but controversial spying power, before it lapses at the end of this week.

The Senate will break from normal business to begin the impeachment at 1 p.m.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ought to hold a full impeachment trial, accusing Schumer of trying to “sweep it under the rug.”

“He’s going to say that this is— the allegation did not constitute high crimes or misdemeanors and it shows that it’s just a policy dispute. He’s dead wrong. He doesn’t know what the evidence is going to show. He hasn’t seen it,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said he plans to bring at least one point of order on the floor before the trial wraps up. Asked what that point of order would look like, Kennedy said only: “It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be huge.”

House Republicans muscled through a vote to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border on Feb. 13, exactly one week after their first attempt to impeach him collapsed spectacularly on the floor.

The vote was 214-213, with three Republicans opposing the impeachment for a second time: Ken Buck, of Colorado, Tom McClintock, of California, and Mike Gallagher, of Wisconsin.

“From his first day in office, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement at the time.

President Joe Biden blasted House Republicans immediately after the vote.

“History will not look kindly on House Republicans for their blatant act of unconstitutional partisanship that has targeted an honorable public servant in order to play petty political games,” he said in a statement.

Senate Democrats hope to quickly dismiss the House’s articles of impeachment against Mayorkas this week and move on to other matters.

But Senate Republicans, demanding a full impeachment trial or the creation of a special impeachment committee, want to make the coming days as politically painful as possible for Mayorkas and his Democratic allies.

A band of conservatives, led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, plans to throw up procedural roadblocks, try to delay the issue and put the spotlight on Democrats’ refusal to conduct a trial and hold Mayorkas accountable for what they view as his failure to secure the southern border.

Read the full story here.

All 100 senators will be sworn in as jurors in Mayorkas’ impeachment trial beginning at 1 p.m. ET.

He faces two articles of impeachment. The first accuses him of “willfully and systemically” refusing to comply with federal immigration laws leading to “millions” entering the U.S. illegally. The second article says Mayorkas “breached the public trust” by making false statements to Congress and knowingly obstructing congressional oversight of the Homeland Security Department.

It is unclear exactly how long the trial will last. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said the Senate will deal with the matter “expeditiously.”