During remarks on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about the dismissal of the articles of impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Madam President, yesterday the Senate set a very important precedent that impeachment
00:07 should be reserved only for high crimes and misdemeanors and not for settling policy disagreements.
00:16 That is what the impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas was from the start.
00:20 A policy dispute, frankly, to help Donald Trump on the campaign trail.
00:26 It did not meet the high standard required by the Constitution to remove someone from
00:30 office.
00:32 I am very glad the Senate worked its will to set these charges aside.
00:39 The prudence and cool judgment the Senate showed yesterday is what the framers would
00:43 have wanted.
00:44 They didn't want impeachment to be used for every policy dispute.
00:50 When you don't agree with a cabinet minister, you impeach them.
00:56 That would have created chaos in the executive branch and here in the Senate.
01:01 Because the House could just throw over impeachment after impeachment.
01:05 And if you had to have a whole big trial on every one of them, the Senate could be ground
01:09 to a halt.
01:11 So let me repeat what I said yesterday.
01:14 We felt it was very important to set a precedent that impeachment should never, never be used
01:19 to settle policy disagreements.
01:22 We're supposed to have debates on the issues, not impeachment on the issues.
01:27 Let me repeat that.
01:28 It's such an important concept.
01:30 And I'm so glad we stood firm yesterday.
01:33 We are supposed to have debates on the issues, not impeachment on the issues.
01:39 We are not supposed to say that whenever you disagree with someone on policy, then that
01:44 is a high crime and misdemeanor.
01:47 Can you imagine, Madam President, the kind of chaos and damage that would create?
01:53 As I said, the House could paralyze the Senate with frivolous trials, particularly when one
01:58 party had the House and the other had the Senate.
02:00 It would degrade government and it would frankly degrade impeachment, which is reserved rarely
02:07 for high crimes and misdemeanors.
02:09 To show how unprecedented what the House did was, no cabinet secretary has been impeached
02:16 for over since I think it was 1867.
02:20 And even in that case, he resigned before the trial.
02:24 It was never intended to happen.
02:27 But unfortunately, the hard radical right in the House is just so intent on paralyzing
02:33 government, creating chaos in government, even destroying government, that they don't
02:37 care.
02:38 But we in the Senate on our side of the aisle did care.
02:42 And my guess is a lot of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle care too.
02:50 If my colleagues on the other side want to talk about immigration, Democrats welcome
02:55 that debate.
02:56 Welcome it.
02:58 We should debate border bills like the ones Republicans blocked here on the floor.
03:03 That is how you fix the border, with bipartisan legislation.
03:09 would have accomplished nothing.