Capito and other senators demand impeachment trial for Homeland Security director

WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is one of 42 Republican senators demanding an impeachment trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Capito and the 42 Republican senators have submitted a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for the impeachment trial to begin in the U.S. Senate.

The letter was led by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. It calls on the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty by holding a trial to consider the impeachment of Mayorkas.

“The House of Representatives has considered this evidence and impeached Secretary Mayorkas,” Capito and the 41 other lawmakers wrote in the letter to Schumer. “Our constitutional duty requires the Senate to hold a trial. In every previous congressional impeachment of the past 227 years, Congress has been faithful to the process set out by the framers… Never before has the Senate abandoned this duty, even when certain members believed the basis for impeachment was tenuous at best.”

The Republican-controlled U.S. House impeached Mayorkas in part over the southern border, which has seen thousands of illegal migrant crossings.

“In the face of the disaster that mounts daily at our southern border, and in communities across America, the House of Representatives has formally accused Alejandro Mayorkas of demeaning his office. The American people deserve to hear the evidence through a Senate trial in the Court of Impeachment,” the senators said in the letter.

Capito, who also serves on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee and as the vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, led a number of her Republican colleagues in a series of speeches on the Senate floor and spoke about the necessity for an impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate during the weekly Senate Republican leadership press conference.

Earlier this week, Capito wrote an op-ed for the Washington Examiner calling for a full impeachment trial of Secretary Mayorkas.

“First and foremost, the Biden-Mayorkas DHS has failed to uphold the law and secure our borders,” Capito said in a copy of the article provided by her office Friday. “This broad and willful effort by the Biden administration to open our borders began on day one of this administration when President Joe Biden ended successful Trump-era policies, such as contracts to build the border wall, the “Remain in Mexico” or “Migrant Protection Protocols” program, and Safe Third Country agreements. The numbers certainly don’t lie. Since Biden took office, there have been more than 9.2 million illegal border crossings. Or, put another way, the average monthly encounters have increased by almost 400% under the Biden administration.”