Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has agreed to Senate conservatives’ request that he delay sending two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas until next week.
The House had been slated to send the articles to the Senate on Wednesday.
“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,” Johnson’s spokesperson Taylor Haulsee said.
Senate Steering Committee Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah) told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he was “very grateful to Speaker Johnson for his willingness to delay this.”
“We don’t want this to come over on the eve of the moment when members might be operating under the influence of jet-fume intoxication,” Lee said, referring to the expectation that the Senate was going to vote Thursday on whether to table the articles of impeachment right before senators were scheduled to fly back to their home states for the weekend.
“It’s much better for us to do this at the beginning of a legislative week rather than toward the end of one and I thank him for doing that,” he added.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) told reporters earlier Tuesday that it’s entirely up to Johnson to decide when House impeachment managers will present the charges against Mayorkas to the Senate.
Once the impeachment managers make their presentation, the Senate’s impeachment procedures will be put into motion.
Senators would be sworn in as jurors the day after the House impeachment mangers present the articles in the Senate chamber.
The presentation was originally scheduled to happen at 5 p.m. Wednesday.
But postponing the process until next week means it will vie for floor time with legislation to extend the expiring FISA expanded surveillance authorities. That bill faces an April 19 deadline.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to the revised timeline by announcing that Senate Democrats will move quickly to quash the impeachment charges whenever they arrive from the House.
“We’re ready to go whenever they are. We are sticking with our plan. We’re going to move this as expeditiously as possible,” he said.
Updated at 4:43 p.m.