House to delay sending Mayorkas impeachment articles to the Senate until next week
By Melanie Zanona and Annie Grayer, CNN
(CNN) — The House will send impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate next week – a delay that comes as Senate Republicans seek more time to make the public argument for a full trial since Democrats are expected to quickly dismiss the articles at the beginning of the trial.
“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. There is no reason whatsoever for the Senate to abdicate its responsibility to hold an impeachment trial,” Taylor Haulsee, a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, told CNN in a statement.
House Republican leaders had initially planned to transmit the articles to the Senate on Wednesday, but some Senate Republicans had been urging Speaker Mike Johnson to delay the transfer, as they try to build more support for blocking an expected motion from Democrats to dismiss the trial.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters that Democrats are “sticking with our plan” to deal with the impeachment “as expeditiously as possible.”
“We are ready to go whenever they are,” said Schumer. “We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible.”
Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy said on Tuesday, “We have asked – and I understand this is public now – the speaker, we asked him to delay sending over the articles until Monday to at least give us a full week. We’ll see if Senator Schumer honors the extra time.”
Senate Republican Whip John Thune explained why some Senate Republicans are pushing for a delay in the impeachment articles being sent over from the House. He also said some members of his conference have been communicating with the House about the matter.
“If we want to have the opportunity in the Senate to have a more fulsome discussions about this when the articles come over, there are times when that could probably happen better than having them come over tomorrow night and having to deal with it Thursday afternoon.”
He added: “It’s the speaker’s call, but clearly our members want to have the opportunity not only to debate, but to have some votes on issues they want to raise, in some cases those will be points of order.”
Asked if Johnson is considering a delay, Thune said, “That’s a question for him. We have members who have been communicating with the House about this, but the only thing I can tell you is what he’s said already and that is the intention is to send it over here tomorrow.”
CNN’s Kristin Wilson and Ted Barrett contributed.
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