Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is opposed to an impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and he is betting enough of his Democratic colleagues will vote to quash the effort, too.
The Republican-led House is expected to impeach Mayorkas Tuesday on charges that he willfully refused to enforce the law as the nation’s top border official. He also stands accused of breaching the public trust.
Ordinarily, the Senate would try Mayorkas on those charges, but Senate Democrats have no appetite to do so given what they perceive as a politically motivated investigation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not outright said he would delay or skip the trial, but that is the preference of members of his leadership team.
Doing so would require Democrats to reinterpret the Senate rules with a simple majority vote, placing the caucus’s centrists in a vulnerable position amid a record influx of immigrants at the southern border.
It isn’t a tough call, however, for Manchin, a critical vote for Democrats given their 51-seat control of the upper chamber.
“Absolutely not, that’s ridiculous,” he said on Tuesday when asked if he would support an impeachment trial.
What’s more, he predicted the votes would be there within his caucus as a whole. Republicans are expected to vote against a motion to dismiss.
“We would dismiss it, yes. I think there’s the votes for that,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I just want to get rid of it as quick as possible. You go down that path, that’s a slippery slope. You would never stop.”
The southern border has become unavoidably tied up in election-year politics. Manchin, on the same day, announced his support for a border deal that is quickly unraveling due in part to resistance from former President Donald Trump.
The impeachment of Mayorkas is viewed as a way to vent Republican anger over President Joe Biden’s handling of the border, but Manchin said the president’s policy views should be litigated in November, not in Congress.
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“If you’re unhappy with that, you got a chance to make changes — do it at the polls, not with appointments,” he said of Republicans.
Manchin, who decided against running for another term in the Senate, has not closed the door on a third-party run for president.
