Dr. John Lott has a new piece at the Missoulian.
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Will Sen. Jon Tester provide the necessary vote this week to hold an impeachment trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Democrats might think that they can protect vulnerable Democrats such as Tester, who is up for re-election this year, by keeping them from having to vote on Mayorkas’ guilt or innocence. But by supporting a motion to prevent the trial, Tester effectively declares Mayorkas innocent without even listening to the evidence.
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Democrats maintain that the impeachment of Mayorkas is purely political. Republicans counter that Mayorkas has violated the Constitution and a long list of laws by letting in almost ten million illegal aliens. If Democrats are correct, Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on and they should have an easy case to make.
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Senators in an impeachment trial are jurors, not prosecutors or defense attorneys. They may be jurors who have already decided on the strength of the evidence, but that is nothing out of the ordinary. Democratic or Republican Senators aren’t likely to change their votes based on the presentations by the House managers, but the Senators still sit through the often repetitive presentations.
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Even when Republicans controlled the Senate, they still held a trial for Trump. The Senate even held Trump’s second impeachment trial after his term ended — a strange thing to do when the only penalty from impeachment is the removal from office. But Democrats don’t want Americans to see evidence of Mayorkas’ law-breaking, which has brought in enough illegal aliens to equal the population of ten Montanas.
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During Biden’s administration, eight million illegals have either turned themselves into immigration officials or been caught sneaking in. Another 1.8 million “got aways” were seen crossing the border but could not be caught. But there is a third group — those who crossed the border without being observed. Unfortunately, with border agents being kept busy with processing illegal crossers, much of the border has been left unguarded. This third group might constitute unknown millions more.
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During Trump’s last fiscal year as president, there was an average of 33,000 border encounters a month. But during fiscal year 2023, the monthly average stood at 206,000. And this doesn’t even account for the likely large number of unobserved crossers in 2023.
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Any trial is likely to mention the tragedies of Mayorkas’ policies, which include 85,000 children going missing, the 1,424 illegals dying at the border, the entry of at least 280 people on the terrorist watchlist, over 70,000 Americans who died from fentanyl in 2022 alone, and massive human trafficking.
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It is understandable that Democrats don’t want Mayorkas on trial. A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that a 69% to 22% margin of likely voters believe that the border situation constitutes a “crisis”. Even Democrats believe this by a 51% to 35% margin. Mayorkas’s policies are alienating traditionally Democratic groups such as blacks, Hispanics, young people, and college-educated women.
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Articles of impeachment have been delivered to the Senate twenty-one times in American history. Three resulted in resignations, and the other 18 cases were tried by the Senate. Nine of the accused individuals were acquitted, eight were found guilty, and one was dismissed because the offender was already removed from office. Undoubtedly, politics entered into a number of these cases, and the cases were not ironclad. The only other impeached cabinet official, Secretary of War William Belknap, was acquitted in 1876.
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In the evenly divided Senate, a single vote may make the difference in whether Mayorkas faces trial. Montana’s Tester could be the deciding vote. The duty to uphold the laws of the land rests on his shoulders.
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John R. Lott Jr., “Duty to uphold the laws of the land rests on Tester’s shoulders,” Missoulian, April 13, 2024.
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