Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, as wrong as the majority leader was moments ago in making this particular point of order as to article I, the impeachment article--article I, remember, refers to the willful defiance by Secretary Mayorkas of the law. As wrong as he was in making that as to article I--and he was very wrong for the reasons articulated moments ago by the Senator from Texas--he is even more wrong, far more so, with respect to article II, because article II accuses him of knowingly making false statements. This is a violation of 18 U.S.C., section 1001--a felony offense. If this is not a high crime and misdemeanor, what is? If this is not impeachable, what is? What precedent will be set? We need to address this, and to discuss it, we need to discuss it in closed session. Motion For Closed Session For that reason, Madam President, I move that the Senate proceed to closed session to allow for the deliberation on this very consequential point of order that he has just made that violates hundreds of years of Anglo-American legal precedent and understanding on the question required by impeachment, rule XXIV, and I call for the yeas and nays. Vote on Motion

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my Republican colleagues.

Mr. LEE. That is precisely what the precedent established today stands for. That is--we have effectively--by this vote that the Democrats forced through, not even allowing us to debate this--and this is why I raised a point of order--or this is why I made a motion that we go into closed session to discuss this, because we have now set a precedent that effectively--very arguably effectively immunizes from impeachment making a false statement to Congress.

Mr. LEE. Yes, please.

Mr. LEE. Well, let's see, obviously, spreading what they deem misinformation on the internet might be a felony. I suppose at some point--

Mr. LEE. A high crime or misdemeanor.

Mr. LEE. It takes more than a high crime or misdemeanor.

Mr. LEE. I would love to respond to that point briefly, if I could, please. What we have done is to effectively immunize this against impeachability--immunize making false statements. And going back to the original question, I don't know. Maybe aggravated, first-degree murder with heinous, atrocious, and cruel conduct as aggravators--maybe that is still a high crime or misdemeanor. That remains to be seen. But keep in mind, particularly with the fact that they already set aside article I--and they have already said that that is out of bounds, as well, for impeachability. The Supreme Court has said pretty much nobody has standing to address that. What are we left with? And getting back to the question from Senator Lummis, this is a phenomenally dangerous precedent to have set here, specifically with regard to false statements, because what does that do to our oversight hearings, where we rely, routinely, on testimony provided under oath by Cabinet Secretaries and other administration officials? What does that do? What incentive structure does that create? What perverse incentives does that create for them to lie?

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. LEE. Who wouldn't be offended by the use of the term ``kangaroo court.'' In fact, the entire marsupial world will be offended by this.

Mr. LEE. Yes.

Mr. LEE. Senator Ricketts is the former Governor of Nebraska. I would love to get your perspective on this.

Mr. LEE. Before he had his name changed legally--for purposes of this Chamber--to the junior Senator from Missouri, Attorney General Eric Schmitt was one of the Nation's leading legal minds engaged in this problem, engaged in trying to address the lawlessness at our southern border, brought on by the policies of this administration. I would like to hear his perspective on what happened today.

Mr. LEE. No. Thank you. Excellent remarks. There are some days that one wishes one could live over. This is a day that will live in infamy and is a day that future generations will wish had gone differently. We have got a friend and colleague--our friend and colleague, the senior Senator from Wisconsin, has many titles in the Senate, titles of distinction. He is the prince of plastics, the maven of manufacturing, the connoisseur of cheese curds. He is also, among other things, someone who has identified himself as a chancellor of charts showing the profound depth of our border security crisis. He has been working on this ever since he first became the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee back in 2015. He has built on these charts, and he has built on them in a way that has resulted in their catching fire. You will now see politicians all over the country at every level of government--and I mean every level of government--utilizing his charts because they are the best in the business. Let's hear from him now.

Mr. LEE. I am grateful for those insights that we had from our friend and colleague, the distinguished senior Senator from Wisconsin. You know, when the senior Senator from Alabama joined the United States Senate, it was a pleasure to get to know him. It has been a pleasure to work with him ever since. In fact, I visited our southern border within a few months after he arrived here. I noticed in him a distinct concern not only for the welfare of the residents of the State of Alabama and all other Americans but also a genuine concern for those who have been human-trafficked into our country by the drug cartels, with the tacit acquiescence and even the affirmative blessing of this administration. I, for one, am glad that Senator Tuberville was not the head coach at the University of Miami when their football team played BYU in the late summer of 1990. Had he been, that game might have turned out differently. But I would love to get his thoughts on this matter.

Mr. LEE. A very good game.

Mr. LEE. Thank you, Coach. Another one of our colleagues who has been a longtime advocate of secure borders and is tireless in her advocacy is our friend and colleague the senior Senator from the State of Tennessee. I would love to get her thoughts on what happened today.

Mr. LEE. Thank you, Senator Blackburn. Another great mind that we benefit from in the Senate is our friend and colleague, the junior Senator from Florida. Before he became the Senator from Florida, Senator Scott was previously Governor Scott, a Governor of one of the most heavily populated States in America. And prior to that, he was famous in the business world, personally employing hundreds of thousands of people. So the Department of Homeland Security is an enormous organization. Nobody understands how best to run an enormous organization and to do so with exceptional skill better than Senator Scott, and nobody understands better than him how the buck stops with the person running that organization. We would love to hear from him now.

Mr. LEE. I am grateful for the comments that have been made by so many colleagues today in this colloquy and for the insights they have shared. Each comes from a different State, bringing a different set of perspectives to the table, a different set of political and professional perspectives that help them shed light on this important issue and provide insights and warnings about the rather grave implications that we so cavalierly overlooked today--``we,'' meaning the Senate as a whole, with 49 of us trying to stand in the way and raise a word of warning about what we are doing and what implications that might have for the future. The warning signs are everywhere. Tragically, we have seen, just in the last few days, with news breaking in recent hours, that the consequences of our open-borders policy can touch all of us, with one of our dear respected colleagues having lost a beloved staff member within the last few days, having lost that staff member as a consequence of the actions taken by an immigrant in this country who was here unlawfully, who shouldn't have been here. That is a troubling thing, but the human level has so many ramifications. There are so many thousands of families, so many hundreds of thousands, and, in fact, so many millions and, in fact, tens--depending on how you slice it, hundreds--of millions of Americans who have been impacted in real, meaningful ways by the open-borders policy that has been so prominently featured by these Articles of Impeachment. Over three decades ago, I spent 2 years along the U.S.-Mexico border, down in the McAllen, TX, region. I was there as a missionary. And, as a missionary, one lives and works among people of all backgrounds. I spent a lot of time with people of modest means. And, in my case, I spent most of my time with people of such humble means that I never quite witnessed in the United States--conditions that I didn't know existed on any widespread basis in the United States, including some people with dirt floors and no indoor plumbing. But in countless cases--those were a little bit more rare, but they exist or, at least, they existed in the early 1990s. Even though those were more rare--those extreme cases--almost all the people I interacted with on a day-to-day basis were people of very humble means. They were living paycheck to paycheck, just trying to get by. And many of these people were themselves recent immigrants. Some, I suspect, were here legally. Others, I suspect, were here illegally. It wasn't standard practice at the time for missionaries talking to people to find out their immigration status. We were there for different reasons. You get to know people. You get to know their backgrounds. You get to know their concerns. One of the things that stands out from my memories of those 2 years is that, as I interacted with these people and learned their customs and learned their language--most of them didn't speak English. Some who didn't speak English had themselves lived in the United States most or all of their lives. In fact, there were some people, especially in the older generations, where these families had been in Texas for a very long time--for generations. And some of those older generations of people were raised speaking largely, if not exclusively, Spanish. But regardless of their immigration background or whether their family had been in Texas for generations or for only days or weeks, and whether they came legally or illegally, something I learned about them was that there is no one who fears uncontrolled waves of illegal immigration in quite the same way, to quite the same degree, as recent immigrants, especially recent immigrants of humble means living on or near the U.S.-Mexico border. You see, because it is their schools, it is their jobs, it is their neighborhoods, their homes, their children, their families who are most directly affected by these uncontrolled waves of illegal immigration, because it is those things that are at their doorstep. They know that every one of those things are placed in grave jeopardy every time the floodgates open and people pour across our border into the United States without legal authority to be here. Every single time that happens, that has adverse consequences. We have talked a lot about the more obvious and more newsworthy, more news-covered, implications of open borders, with situations like Laken Riley hitting the news. But we don't always talk about how it affects other people in more mundane, more pedestrian ways. I think we have to be mindful of and, really, watch out for the tendency of those of us who are privileged enough to serve in this body to otherize immigrants, to otherize anyone with a Hispanic surname, to otherize anyone by, among other things, assuming that those groups of people speak monolithically or that we speak for them, insofar as we are seen as advocating a position that is tolerant of or even eager to embrace open borders. It is not the full picture, and it is one of the more blatantly awful otherizations that we bring about in our society. It is assuming that someone with a Hispanic surname, someone who may be a recent immigrant themselves would necessarily want open borders. It is simply not true, and it speaks profound ignorance to the plight of these individuals when we claim that they speak monolithically, especially insofar as we are suggesting, even indirectly, that they are for open borders just because of their last name or their first language or how recently they arrived in the United States or where they live in the United States relative to the border. Getting back to the bigger picture here into what specifically happened today, when I think about the 13-- going on 13\1/2\--years that I have spent in the U.S. Senate, I don't think I can remember another day when something of such profoundly disastrous consequences was done in this body to shatter norms, rules, precedents, legal traditions and, in this case, constitutional principles quite like this decision here today did. I remember, just before Thanksgiving in 2013, I had been in the Senate not yet 3 years, just days before Thanksgiving, just before we broke for the Thanksgiving recess, when a group of my colleagues, all of one particular party, decided to nuke the executive filibuster-- decided to break the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate, not by changing the rules themselves, because changing the rules themselves takes 67 votes, but, instead, by a simple majority vote. They created new precedent to undercut and flip the meaning of one of the Senate rules: getting rid of the cloture rule with regard to the Executive Calendar. I spoke to a lot of people after that happened, people of both political parties, including some of both political parties even within this body, who serve in this body, who expressed regret over that day and concerns for where it could lead. But particularly I heard from people not serving in this body, people from all walks of life, including people of all political persuasions, who acknowledged the profound consequences that could have and would eventually have on the United States Senate because, again, it involves a rather shameless, cynical maneuver whereby the Senate broke the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate without actually changing the rules, pretending that the rules said A, not B, when, in fact, they said B, not A. I think it may have been Abraham Lincoln who once said that--he asked rhetorically, if you count a dog's tail as a leg, how many legs does the dog have? Whenever he asked this to any individual, they would tend to say, understandably, accepting the framework of his hypothetical, that that would be five legs. He would respond by saying: No, it is not five legs. Even if you call the tail of a dog a leg, it is still not a leg. That is what we did when we nuked the executive filibuster on that fateful day in November 2013. In countless ways, what happened today was far worse than that because what was at stake today were not just the rules, traditions, precedents, and norms of this body--rules, precedents, traditions, and norms that, I would add here, have at no moment in our nearly 2\1/2\ century existence countenanced a result like what we achieved today. That is to say, we never had something like this, where we had Articles of Impeachment passed by the House of Representatives and transmitted to the United States Senate at a moment when the person impeached was neither dead, nor a person who had left the office that person held, nor a person ineligible for impeachment, meaning a Member of the House or Senate. Members of the House or Senate can be expelled by their respective body by a two-thirds supermajority vote, but they are not subject to impeachment per se. If we carve out those narrow, rare exceptions where Articles of Impeachment have been cast in a way that was patently wrong, where subject matter jurisdiction in this body was lacking either at the time the articles were passed or between the time they were passed at the House and the time they arrived in the Senate, we have what I think can fairly be characterized as essentially a perfect record--at least a consistent record--that we at least held a trial. We at least held the bare bones of a trial in which we had arguments presented by lawyers--at a minimum, by lawyers representing the House of Representatives. They are known as impeachment managers and sometimes described colloquially as House prosecutors. We at least heard arguments by them. Normally, that involves a presentation of evidence by them, by the House impeachment managers. Normally, it involves both sides having lawyers--not just the House impeachment managers but also defense counsel representing the impeached individual. Normally, there has been evidence presented and arguments made about why the Articles of Impeachment either were or were not meritorious. In every one of those circumstances, with the narrow exceptions that I described as the sole exceptions, there has been at least some finding on at least some of those articles in every single case culminating in a verdict--a verdict of guilty or not guilty. That by itself is a precedent and a norm and a custom and a tradition and a set of rules that we overlooked today and that we have run roughshod right over. But there is something much more at stake, something much more concerning about this that I find so troubling, and that is that under article I, section 3, clause 6, the Senate is given the sole power and with it the sacred responsibility and duty to try all impeachments. As I just described, in every circumstance where there wasn't some jurisdictional defect--and by that, I mean a bona fide subject matter jurisdictional defect such that we lacked jurisdiction to move forward--we have proceeded and reached some kind of a verdict in every one of those cases. But not today. Mr. President, I had been concerned for weeks and I heard rumors for weeks that what was going to happen today was that the majority leader was going to approach these articles with a certain degree of cavalier indifference and offer up a motion to table. I immediately became convinced after looking at the rules and studying the precedent on this that a motion to table would be inappropriate here. It would be inappropriate because, for the same reasons I just explained, we have never done that, never done anything close to that. The closest precedent for something like that was so far off course that it couldn't even be relied on. I recall the only precedent that even sounded like the same thing was, in fact, very different. During the trial over the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, one Senator had made a particular motion to do a particular thing during that trial, and another Senator later moved to table that motion. There was no motion to table any Articles of Impeachment. In any event, I became convinced after studying this that a motion to table would be without precedent and contrary to everything I thought I knew about our role constitutionally and otherwise to conduct impeachment trials. I also became convinced that this would be bad precedent in that it would set a certain precedent suggesting that it is OK, that if the party occupying the majority position at the United States Senate didn't want to conduct a trial, that it didn't have to; it could just sweep them aside. As I say, channeling the immortal words of Rush and the song ``Freewill,'' if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You made a bad one if you choose to just set aside the impeachment articles without rendering a verdict of guilty or not guilty, whether pursuant to a motion to table or otherwise. A motion to table would be an especially bad basis--an especially bad strategy and bad mode for disposing of or otherwise addressing Articles of Impeachment. It is important in this context to remember that the United States Senate has exactly three states of being. We exist at any given moment in our capacity as legislators in legislative session; secondly, in executive session, where we consider Presidential nominations and also on occasion treaties for ratification--both executive functions carried out under our Executive Calendar. Our third state of being exists in this context where we are to operate as a Court of Impeachment. It is solely in our capacity as Senators sitting in a Court of Impeachment that we are administered a second separate oath, different from the oath that we all take each time we are elected or reelected to the Senate--different capacity. It is a capacity that requires us to decide the case and to do so on the merits of the case. It is also unique in that it is the only mode in which there is a solid expectation, unblemished until today, that if we do, in fact, have Articles of Impeachment over which we have subject matter jurisdiction, that the case hasn't been rendered moot--there is an expectation, backed up by history, tradition, precedent, and the text of the Constitution, that we will do the job; that, in fact, according to these precedents, up until today, we will reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty by the time we are done. You see, those things don't exist in the other two states of being. In our legislative calendar, there is no expectation or tradition or precedent or implication from the text of the Constitution that we will affirmatively act upon and ultimately dispose of every piece of legislation presented to the United States Senate. We don't do that. We have never taken that approach. If we did, it would grind the place to a halt. I don't think it would physically be possible. Nor has that ever been the expectation on the Executive Calendar. Sure, we tend eventually to get to most of them, but there is an understanding that unless or until such time as we confirm a particular nominee, that nominee is not confirmed, such that if we get to the end of the road, the end of that Congress, the end, even, of a session, if that person is to be confirmed, that person is to be renominated first and then considered by the Senate. But even then, there is no guarantee as to any final vote disposing of that nomination. This is different in the context of an impeachment where we sit as a Court of Impeachment. In so doing, we become two things. In any trial-- in an ordinary court, there are two functions that a trial involves. You have to have finders of fact--that is a role typically played by a jury in our system, both in civil cases and in criminal cases--and you have to have judges of legal issues. Typically, those are performed by a judge. In some cases--most commonly, if the parties agree to have the issues of fact decided by a judge rather than a jury, then you can have the whole thing, the issues of fact and the issues of law, decided by a judge. We serve both functions. We are finders of fact and judges of the law relevant to the impeachment case before us. I think that is the whole reason why we are given a separate oath for that. We don't take a separate oath every time we bring up a bill or get a Presidential nomination or every time we are asked to consider a treaty for ratification, but we do take a separate oath every time we receive Articles of Impeachment. It is not just because these things are more rare than bills as they are introduced or nominations as they are received or treaties presented to us for potential ratification; it is because it is a sacred responsibility in which there is an expectation, backed up by centuries of tradition, custom, precedent, and understanding of our constitutional text, that we will dispose of the case. We will dispose of it in a way that culminates in a finding of guilty or not guilty except in these rare instances where we lack subject matter jurisdiction most commonly because the case has been rendered moot, which it is not in this instance. The particular way in which we went about this today really was crazy and impossible to defend--absolutely impossible to defend on its merits. Remember, there were two articles in these impeachment charges. Article I alleged that in eight or nine different instances in which Secretary Mayorkas had an affirmative legal duty to detain illegal immigrants pending adjudication of either their asylum claims or of their argument that they might be entitled to some other form of relief, including immigration parole, the Secretary of Homeland Security had an affirmative duty to detain them while those decisions were pending. Eight or nine different statutes required that, eight or nine different statutes he deliberately violated. He did the opposite of what the statute required, and by doing that, he invited and facilitated an invasion at our southern border that is unprecedented in American history. That has been dangerous. That has resulted in all kinds of heinous crimes being committed--loss of life, loss of innocence, loss of property--many, many harms occurring as a result of this, occurring as a result of his deliberate decision not only not to do the job he was hired to do and that he swore an oath to perform well but to do the exact opposite of what the law required. I mentioned a little while ago the writings of Justice Story, Justice Joseph Story, one of our early Supreme Court Justices a couple of centuries ago. He was familiar with the Constitution at a time closer to the Founding and also very familiar with the English legal antecedents on which the Constitution was predicated, with the legal terminology incorporated from English law into the American constitutional system. And in his great treatise on the Constitution, in section 798, he explained a few things about impeachable offenses. And he said in section 798: In examining the parliamentary history of impeachments, it will be found, that many offences, not easily definable by law, and many of a purely political character, have been deemed high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of this extraordinary remedy. This extraordinary remedy, of course, referring to impeachment. It then recites a litany of things that would qualify for this. And, again, he just noted, they don't necessarily have to be easily definable by law when they are of a political nature, but he identified some of those things that had been established through English legal precedent--English parliamentary precedent--as worthy of impeachment qualifying as high crimes and misdemeanors. Among other things, he identified what he referred to as ``attempts to subvert the fundamental laws''--attempts to subvert the fundamental laws. Those could have broad application in all sorts of areas, but I can think of few laws more fundamental to our Republic, to our Federal legal system than our fundamental laws governing who may enter this country and under what circumstances. He went on to identify a number of other things that fit this definition, adding to it, among other things, by saying the one thing in particular that would meet the definition of ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' and would thus be impeachable would be an instance in which a lord admiral may have neglected the safeguard of the sea. So some on the other side of the aisle have argued that, well, really what Secretary Mayorkas did was to just not do as good of a job as he should have and could have in enforcing the law, and that can't be a basis for impeachment, they argue. Some of them will invoke the line of reasoning that says maladministration--in other words, not doing your job well--isn't a valid basis for an impeachable offense. I am not at all sure that that argument, even stated in the abstract, is accurate. In fact, I tend to think that it is not because the Constitution itself assigns that job to this branch of government--to the House as it assesses whether to charge something as impeachable and to the Senate as it assesses whether an impeachment passed and presented by the House warrants conviction, removal from office. That really is our job, and as Justice Story noted, it includes offenses of a political character, regardless of whether they would amount to independently prosecutable criminal offenses in a criminal court of law sense of that word. But in any event, even if you buy into that reason, there are those scholars who believe that. I seem to recall Professor Alan Dershowitz, a respected Harvard law professor from whom we have heard in past impeachment proceedings. I believe that he believes in this approach. Even under Professor Dershowitz's approach, he is someone for whom I have great respect, even where I disagree with him. Even if you were to accept that premise, this isn't just that. This goes far beyond just maladministration. It is not just that Secretary Mayorkas didn't do as good of a job as he could have and should have and we wish he would have, it is that he willfully subverted what the law required and did the exact opposite of what the law required. That is impeachable. It has got to be impeachable, and yet the majority leader stood up today, and he said: I raise a point of order that impeachment article I--again, impeachment article I is the part that deals with Secretary Mayorkas's decision to do the exact opposite of what the law requires. The majority leader continued: Impeachment article I does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor as required in article II, section 4, of the United States Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional. Really, I don't know how he gets there. He can't get there except by sheer force, and the way you do something by sheer force here is you produce a simple majority of votes from Senators declaring the impeachment equivalent of defining the tail of a dog to be a leg. What I found even more stunning, was when--as stunning as that first move was and as disappointing as it was that a simple majority of United States Senators, all from the same political party, I would add, not my own--he somehow managed to outdo that one by later making the same point of order with respect to article II. Arguing that, you know, he said: I raise a point of order that impeachment article II does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor as required under article II, section 4, of the United States Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional. Let's remember what article II was about. Article II charged Secretary Mayorkas with knowingly making false statements to Congress as Congress was carrying out its oversight responsibilities with him testifying, often under oath, to Congress. Now, unfortunately, we never got to hear any evidence on this. Therefore, we weren't presented with the opportunity to make a final determination on this, but we instead had the majority simply roll right over all of us by just declaring, ipse dixit, it is because it is. It is because we say it is; that it is not an impeachable offense, even if, as has been alleged and as the House impeachment managers--the House prosecutors we sometimes call them--were denied the opportunity to try to prove that he knowingly made false statements to Congress. To say that that is not impeachable is breathtakingly frightening. We have now established a precedent in the United States Senate that if you occupy a high position of trust within the United States Government, a Cabinet member in this instance, and you knowingly, willfully make false statements to Congress as Congress has tried to get to the truth about what you are doing in your job and whether or not you are faithfully executing, implementing, and enforcing the law, that lying to Congress in that sense, even under oath, isn't an impeachable offense. That precedent could suggest that we now are effectively immunized from impeachment, doing that very thing. How are we to conduct adequate oversight, if even the theoretical threat, the theoretical, hypothetical, potential threat of impeachment isn't on the table? That severely weakens the fabric of our Republic. It certainly weakens the ability of the United States Senate to push back on abuses by and within a coordinate branch of government. You know, when James Madison expressed in the Federalist Papers, among other places in Federalist 51, the government was sort of an experiment; it is an exhibit; it is a display of human nature--there and in other Federalist Papers, he explains things like the fact that as he continued in Federalist 51, that if we as human beings were angels, we wouldn't need government; if we had access to angels to run our government, we wouldn't need all these rules to govern those responsible for government, but, alas, we are not angels. We don't have access to angels to run our government, so we need rules. Madison was also a big believer in the fact that because we are not angels, we don't have access to angels to run our government, we do need these rules. You have got to set up a system in which power can be made to check power, and you set up each branch with its own set of incentives to guard against abuses in power. I have wondered over time, as I have seen the United States Senate gradually but very steadily over many decades voluntarily relinquishing its power--much of it started with our work on the legislative calendar starting in earnest really in the 1930s, continuing to the present day. We have gradually, steadily been outsourcing a lot of our lawmaking power to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats--pass all sorts of laws saying, essentially, we shall have good law with respect to issue x and we hereby delegate to Department or Commission or Agency or functionary y the power to promulgate rules carrying the force of generally applicable Federal law as to issue x. Little by little, the American people lose control over their own government as this happens. Little by little, you start to see that this diminishes the overall accountability of the U.S. Government. And when Agency or Department y promulgates a particular rule carrying the force of generally applicable Federal law, people understandably, predictably, very consistently come to us to complain, saying: This is killing us. This rule made by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats is now going to shut down my business. I am going to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, or some combination of the three. Whether I choose to comply or not, it is going to harm me in material ways. And, yet, you know, Article I, Section 1, Clause 1, says that all legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Article I, Section 7, makes abundantly clear what Article I, section 1 sets up, which is to say: You cannot make a Federal law without the assent of both the House of Representatives and the Senate on the same bill. They have got to the pass the same bill text and then present it to the Chief Executive--the President of the United States--for signature, veto, or acquiescence. Unless you follow that formula of Article I, Section 7, you are not supposed to be able to make a Federal law. One of the more influential political philosophers on the founding generation was Charles de Montesquieu, who observed that the lawmaking power is itself nondelegable; that the task of lawmaking involves the power to make law, not other lawmakers, because as we see to this very day, when these things happen, when people come back to complain to us that the administrative regulation carrying the force of generally applicable Federal law, when it causes problems, people come and complain to us. And then Members of Congress, predictably and foreseeably, beat their chest. And they say: Oh, yes, those barbarians over at Agency, Commission, Department y. We didn't mean to authorize this. We just said make good law as to issue x; we didn't say to make bad law. And then, predictably, Senators, the Representatives, say something like the following: You know what I am going to do for you, Constituent? I am going to write them a harshly worded letter. That is what I am going to do--as if that were our job we were sworn in to do were to write harshly worded letters. It is not that, of course. It is to make laws, not other lawmakers. You know, I keep these two stacks of documents behind my desk. One stack is small. It is usually a few inches, no more than a foot or so, consists of the laws passed by Congress in the preceding year. It is just, you know, a few thousand pages long. The other stack is 13 feet tall. During a typical year, it will reach about 100,000 pages stacked up--even on very thin paper, double-sided, small print--about 13 feet tall, consists of last year's Federal registry, the annual cumulative index of these Federal regulations as they are promulgated, as they are initially released for notice and comment and, later, as they are finalized. Those rules carry the force of generally applicable Federal law. Failure to abide by those can shut down your business, can result in enormous fines. In many cases can result in your imprisonment if you don't follow them. And yet they are not enacted themselves through the formula prescribed by Article I, Section 7. No. Because in that instance, we have authorized the making, not of laws but of other lawmakers, not ourselves. And those other lawmakers to whom we have given this assignment, while, perhaps, however well- educated and well-intentioned, wise, specialized, well-trained they might be, they don't stand accountable to the American people, ever. Their name will never appear on a ballot. In fact, their name will stand, essentially, as a secret to nearly every American, including those who will stand accountable to those laws, who may lose life, liberty, and property as a result of those things. (Ms. HASSAN assumes the Chair.) That is not right. We all know deep down that is not right. We know that every time we are presented with one of these complaints by our constituents--and we all have them. In my office, it is in nearly constant refrain. And yet they often precipitate the predictable harshly worded letter and not a lot else. In other instances, they might culminate in the filing of a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. As fun as those can be--as they do give us, at least, an opportunity to debate them--those are privileged resolutions. If you follow the rules of a Congressional Review Act, you can pretty much always get one of those voted on. You can, at least, have an opportunity to present those here in the U.S. Senate and to vote up or down as to whether or not you want to disapprove of the regulation in question. Ultimately, however, those prove dissatisfying from a constitutional standpoint in the sense that, with very narrow exceptions, they don't really do any good because nearly any administration whose bureaucratic structures will promulgate the administrative rule in question will like, for policy reasons and political reasons, the policy choice embodied in those regulations. And, consequently, the President whose administration promulgated that regulation being challenged under the CRA resolution of disapproval will almost always veto any resolution of disapproval passed by both Houses of Congress. It is very rare that that doesn't happen. With only one exception I can think of from a few decades ago, the only time that works--other than that one exception that I am thinking of--occurs when you have a holdover, when you have a new administration and you have regulations that have been promulgated toward the tail end of the previous administration. We had a number of those when President Trump took office following President Obama's time in office where regulations from the Obama era were becoming ripe for CRA resolutions of disapproval, and we were able to get them passed by both Houses of Congress and then signed by President Trump. Those circumstances are pretty rare. In every other circumstance, the voters of this great country, those subject to these administrative regulations that are, in fact, laws, those things leave us without redress. It is one of the reasons why I have long advocated for us to pass a measure called the REINS Act. If a genie appeared to me and said: You can pass any one bill now pending in front of the U.S. Congress, it would be the REINS Act. Why? Well, because the REINS Act would require us, by statute, to do what I believe the Constitution already requires, what it, in fact, does contemplate, which is: It is fine for administrative regulations to be promulgated, to be proposed. But unless or until they are affirmatively enacted into law by both Houses of Congress and then signed into law or acquiesced to by the sitting President, or in the event of a veto, that veto is overridden by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, then it can take effect. Short of that, no dice. You don't get a law. These do have far-reaching effects, including the fact that, as a Member of the Judiciary Committee, I and a few of my colleagues tried to figure out a few years ago how many criminal offenses are on the books. How many different provisions of Federal law prescribe criminal penalties that can result in a criminal conviction? We asked this question of the Congressional Research Service, the entity to which we turn regularly in order to get answers to questions like those. The answer came back to us in a way that I found absolutely stunning. The answer that came back to us from the Congressional Research Service--very talented people at the Congressional Service who were very good at answering these questions. They did a good job doing it, and in the end, they gave us the answer that it was possible to achieve. They said: The answer is unknown and unknowable, but we know that it stands at at least 300,000 separately defined criminal offenses on the books. Now, this does not mean that on 300,000-plus occasions both Houses of Congress passed into law separate statute defining a criminal offense with criminal penalties. No. In many, many of these instances--one of the reasons why the number is so difficult to tie down is because a lot of these are defined administratively. So that is one area in which the U.S. Senate has been deliberately shirking its responsibilities and handing them off to somebody else, refusing to do the job that we have been given to do. So that is on the legislative calendar. We have done that time and time again. Also on the executive calendar where we have changed the law so as to limit--changed the law or, in some cases, adopted standing orders that have been embraced in subsequent iterations of the Senate limiting the number of Presidential nominees requiring confirmation. So we have narrowed our playing field there, too, shirking our responsibility. Even as the size of the Federal Government has increased inexorably, we have narrowed our job. And now we have seen it done again today in our third state of being, in our third category where we operate as a Court of Impeachment. Even here, where our job is really limited, we have one job in this area: to conduct impeachment trials. There are a thousand ways you can conduct an impeachment trial. You can conduct an impeachment trial with the whole Senate. You can specialize the impeachment trial so that it is heard in the first instance by a select committee with Members of both political parties who hear the evidence and then, after doing that, submit the whole matter for a final vote to the whole Senate. You can hear evidence through individual witnesses. You can receive evidence in documentary form. There are a thousand different ways to conduct a trial, some of which allow the trial to be conducted pretty quickly, others might take more time. But there are a thousand ways we can do it. And, here, as with the other two states of being--first on the legislative calendar and then on the Executive Calendar--now as we sit as a Court of Impeachment, we have narrowed our work again, shirking our responsibilities again, again declining to perform our constitutional duties. This is shameful. I am embarrassed that we as a Senate seem so enamored with the idea that we can't do the things given to us. What is especially troubling about this is that, you know, we are, in fact, a government of limited enumerated powers. Our job is not to, as some people put it, run the country. Our job is not to make law on any matter that we think appropriate or significant. Our job is not just to enact legislation in any area where we think it might redound in one way or another to the net benefit of the American people. No. We are supposed to be a government of limited, enumerated powers, charged with a few basic things. We are in charge of a uniform system of weights and measures, a system of immigration and nationality laws, regulating trade or commerce between the several States with foreign nations and with Indian Tribes. We are in charge of declaring war; establishing and regulating an Army and a Navy; coming up with rules governing State militias, which we now describe and refer to as the National Guard; coining money and regulating the value thereof; coming up with bankruptcy laws; postal roads; post offices; regulating in some instances Federal land to be used for some military purpose; regulating what we now call the District of Columbia; adopting rules governing the regulation and disposal of territory and of other property owned by the United States. One of my favorite powers of Congress involves granting letters of marque and reprisal. ``Marque'' in this instance is spelled M-A-R-Q-U- E. We haven't done one of those in over a century. I hope we will sometime. I think we should. A letter of marque and reprisal is basically a hall pass issued by Congress that allows those acting pursuant to it to engage in acts of piracy on the high seas, with impunity offered by the United States if they are able to make it back with whatever loot they take into the United States and then divide the spoils and share in the spoils with the United States Government. That is about it. There are a few other powers of Congress here and there, but that is the lion's share of what the Federal Government can do. Of course, we occupy the most significant, prominent, dominant, and dangerous power within that because we are the lawmaking branch. We make the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws we make, deferring to our policies and enforcing the policies that we enact. The judicial branch, headed by the Supreme Court, interprets them-- not just in the abstract but interprets them in a way so as to be able to resolve disputes properly brought before the jurisdiction of the courts--disputes over the meaning of Federal law. So we have the most dangerous, prominent, dominant position. It makes sense that the Founding Fathers entrusted that role only to us because we happen to be the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. You can fire all 435 Members of the House every 2 years. You can fire one-third of the Members of this Body every 2 years. It is one of the reasons why you know the Founding Fathers considered the power that we wield the most dangerous, because they made us subject to the most frequent and regular and direct kinds of guarantees of accountability--that is, through elections. So now we have somebody who has been impeached because a law that we passed that he was charged with enforcing and administering and implementing and executing--didn't do his job, although it falls on us to decide that. We have myriad instances in which that violation of the law can't be adjudicated in court, such as this case we referred to earlier, the United States v. Texas, where a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States--I guess, by the way, a brilliant dissent by Justice Alito--concluded that the State of Texas didn't have standing to address violations of law, deviations from law by Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration. So if not us, who? There are countless instances that the courts can't do it. The executive branch isn't going to check the executive branch. The buck stops with us. It is our job to do this, and today, we failed. We didn't just fail in the sense that we tried to do it and we didn't; the majority of us, unfortunately, tried not to, went out of our way to define our role as something that it is not, to define the law as saying something other than what it, in fact, says so that we can shirk our responsibilities once again. Shame on us. Shame on those Members of this body who voted to do that today. I wonder what future generations will say about this. I wonder how many ways in which future generations will suffer from what we did today. I hope they will take this as a lesson in what not to do and soon depart from this awful precedent because otherwise this will lead to the shedding of tears and worse. We are told that the Senate is apparently just too busy to conduct an impeachment trial, just as we are about to be told that the Senate is too busy to require the Federal Government to get a warrant before searching the private communications of the American people incidentally collected and stored in the FISA 702 databases. Too busy to do those things, but I think we are about to be told that it is not too busy to send even more money to Ukraine, where we have already sent $113 billion--not too busy to do that; not too busy to expand FISA without adding a warrant requirement; but just way too busy, apparently, to do what the Senate and only the Senate can do and what under the Constitution we must do. Like the ghost of Christmas future in Charles Dickens' ``A Christmas Carol,'' I hope that as we examine our future and what today's action portends about the future of the United States and of the United States Senate, I hope we can choose to depart from this course. While I fear that our past will prove to be our prologue, I sure hope we won't solidify and more deeply entrench this unwise, indefensible move that we took today. But I am glad we have had a chance today to set the record straight, to make an adequate record of what really happened, and that while a majority--a bare, slim majority--chose to excuse the inexcusable today, some of us--nearly half of us tried to stand in front of that train and stop it. I hope this will prove to be an aberration. Let's all pray that it does. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, we have a job to do. That job is not optional. It is assigned to us by the United States Constitution--a document to which we have all sworn an oath under article I, section 3, clause 6. The Senate has the power and, I would add here, the duty to try all impeachments--not just some impeachments, not just those impeachments with which the majority party feels really happy about looking into, but all impeachments. It is the way it has always been in U.S. history. When the House sends over Articles of Impeachment, if we have jurisdiction, which we clearly, plainly do here, it is our job to conduct a trial. What do I mean by that? Well, it is really a simple concept. In Articles of Impeachment, an accusation is made. Our job is to just decide whether that accusation is meritorious or not, whether the thing that has been accused is legitimate, whether the person who has been accused did the thing that was wrong--committed the high crime or misdemeanors spoken of in the Constitution. We have a job to do, and it is a job that the Senate has always done when we have jurisdiction following the adoption of Articles of Impeachment. Now, let's remember, this is a historic day. This hasn't happened very often. It is only the 22nd time in American history in which Articles of Impeachment have been adopted by the House. In this circumstance where we clearly, plainly have jurisdiction, there is no valid basis for us to do anything other than to decide whether the accusations are legitimate. We have to do that. We don't have the luxury of simply standing back and saying: Ah, we don't want to handle it. Now, I know, I know, the Senate has found ways of shirking its responsibility over and over and over again in all of the operations of the Senate's work. Sometimes--most of the time, we sit as a legislative body, where we consider legislation. We pass law or decline to do so. Other times, we sit in an executive capacity, where we review Presidential nominations to consider them, whether we should confirm them, and also consider treaties. That is in an executive capacity. We also sometimes sit as a Court of Impeachment. Now, in other areas, the Senate has found ways of shirking its responsibilities. We have handed off a whole lot of the lawmaking power to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in the executive branch. In our executive capacity, we have whittled down the number of executive branch nominees who are subject to Senate confirmation, even as the total volume of those individuals has increased. Now it seems we are determined yet again to whittle down our responsibilities in the one area where we have an affirmative duty, an affirmative obligation, an affirmative command within the Constitution requiring us to make a decision. In the immortal words of Rush, in one of my favorite Rush songs of all time, called ``Freewill,'' if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. Yet that is what Senate Democrats are planning to ask us to do within 24 hours--ask us to not decide, ask us to take these accusations in these Articles of Impeachment duly passed by a majority of the House of Representatives, the body in the Congress that has the sole power to impeach--it is not just 218-plus random people who decided to make the accusations against Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who heads the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. No. It is those particular 218-plus people in the House of Representatives who have that power. You see, there is a reason why the impeachment power belongs exclusively to the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is within the legislative branch--the branch of the Federal Government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. Within the Congress, within the legislative branch, they are the body most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals. That is why they call it the People's House. They are the only ones entrusted with this power. A majority of them, of that 435-Member body, has concluded that Alejandro Mayorkas must be impeached. Now, they didn't do it for light and transient reasons. They didn't do it because of a policy disagreement. No. A majority of the House of Representatives has chosen to impeach Secretary Mayorkas for the reason that he has affirmatively defied the commands of Federal law--the laws in particular that he is charged with administering. They have identified at least seven or eight different provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including section 235(b)(2)(A) and 235(b)(1)(B)(ii) and 236(c) and 236(a) and 212(d)(5)(A), just to mention a few of them. These Articles of Impeachment outline a myriad of instances in which Secretary Mayorkas has been commanded decisively, unambiguously to detain illegal immigrants pending one action or another, pending one determination or another as to their eligibility either for immigration parole or for asylum or for something else. He is required to detain them, and he didn't detain them. These are just a few examples of the many things that he has done in direct contravention to a direct command by the law. And it is not just that he didn't do the things that he was commanded to do; it is that he did the exact opposite of those things. He was commanded, for example, not to exercise his immigration parole authority under 212(d)(5)(A). He is not allowed to do that categorically. He is allowed to do that only for discrete, individualized, particularized circumstances in which there is a profound, pronounced humanitarian or public need. Yet he issued all these categorical parole orders, creating categorical immigration parole programs allowing for literally hundreds of thousands of people a year to be brought into this country lawlessly, without documentation, without just cause to be brought into the United States. He made illegal immigrants legal by violating the affirmative command of the law. It is not yet clear exactly what form the arguments presented by the Democrats tomorrow will take, but we do know this: Whether they call it a motion to dismiss or a motion to table, they want to not decide something that has to be decided, by order of the Constitution, by the Senate. These accusations are real. They make a difference. They make a difference to the American people. These crimes--or I should say high crimes and misdemeanors--of which Secretary Mayorkas has been accused are not victimless crimes--far from it. These are offenses that have resulted in millions--on the low end, it is maybe 7 or 8 million; on the high end, it is more like 12, 13, or 14 million--of people who have come into this country unlawfully since January 20, 2021. The administration of Joe Biden has willfully, intentionally brought people into this country who aren't supposed to be here, who aren't allowed to be here. And it is not just the addition of those sheer numbers of people; it is the fact that among those people are many thousands of military-age Chinese males, many millions of military-age males from other countries, including hundreds of suspected terrorists, including thousands who come from countries that we pay close attention to because we know those countries are full of a lot of people who are bent on acts of lawlessness, violence, and terrorism against the United States of America. This, of course, is just the beginning. This says nothing about the countless neighborhoods and schools and communities and jobs and lives that have been lost or violated or rendered unsafe or all of the above as a result of those who have been brought in not just with the acquiescence of but at the invitation of and with the assistance of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the very man whose job it is to protect us from those very things and who has very specific orders that he follows--orders that have been put into law by the Congress of the United States. He is breaking the law over and over and over again specifically to allow for illegal immigration. So the Democrats are expected to come along tomorrow and say: Yeah, but we don't want to have to decide this. We don't want to have to decide it because, well, it is an election year, President Biden is on the ballot, and this is already an area where he is not doing well. And we have other Members of this body, including, you know, a certain Senator from Montana, for example, or maybe a certain Senator from Ohio, for example, or a Senator from Pennsylvania, among others, who are going to be up for reelection. Sure, they would rather not have to address this. I understand why they would rather be doing something else, anything else, other than this. They would rather reorganize their sock drawer. Some of them would probably much rather have a root canal or another painful procedure without anesthesia than focus on this. But, alas, the Constitution is agnostic as to your sock-reorganization days. The Constitution doesn't care how often you go to the dentist and whether you get a root canal with or without anesthesia. But, you know, the Constitution does care about one thing in particular and very relevant here today, and that is that the Senate is to try all impeachments. This is an impeachment. We have to try it, particularly in the absence of the case being rendered moot by a vacancy in office or death or otherwise--circumstances that are noticeably absent here. We have the duty to do this. What happens when we don't? What happens if they get their way and they choose either to table or to dismiss or use some other fancy word to try to avoid doing their job? What happens? Well, more deaths occur--deaths like the tragic passing of Laken Riley, who was taken from us just a few weeks ago as a result of Secretary Mayorkas's lawless conduct along the border. But for his lawless conduct and his cavalier treatment of the law--in fact, his defiant refusal to abide by the law and, in fact, his dogged determination to break the law--Laken Riley would have still been alive. Countless others who have undergone horrific events within their families--murders, rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, drunk driving--all kinds of horrific trauma that the American people have endured. Some of that is going to happen from people who live here already. We shouldn't add to that by bringing in others who shouldn't be here to begin with. This is exactly the kind of thing that our immigration laws are designed to protect against. As one who spent 2 years living and working along our southern border--living and working among and with the poorest of the poor, including many immigrants themselves, recent immigrants, in many cases--I can tell you, there is no group of people who has more cause to fear uncontrolled waves of illegal immigration than recent immigrants themselves, including, and especially, the poor who live on or near a border. It is their jobs, it is their families, it is their schools, it is their neighborhoods, it is their homes that are most directly put in jeopardy every single time we fail or, in the case of Secretary Mayorkas, we adamantly refuse to obey and enforce the law and we do everything that we can to undermine it as he has done. There is no set of arguments I can imagine--I look forward to hearing what arguments might be had tomorrow, might be presented tomorrow--that could be presented with any kind of a straight face that could say we need not address the merits of this accusation--because there are none. Perhaps, they will argue that this is an accusation amounting to mere maladministration--he didn't do a good job. That is not at all what we have here. Even if that is what we have here, that still wouldn't mean that they didn't have to try the case and come up with an answer as to whether or not he did what they said he did. But the impeachment power goes back some, you know, two and a half centuries to the dawn of the Republic. Nearly two and a half centuries ago, when we became a country, we relied heavily on the legal systems-- a tradition, in some cases--of the terminology used in England. And during the early years of the Republic, we had individuals who were familiar with our Constitution who were also familiar, having practiced in the law at the time of the Revolution and some cases before then-- they knew the meaning of these words. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story is one of those individuals who lived, practiced, and wrote at and after the time of the American Revolution, during the early decades of our young Republic. And he explained that, among other things, an impeachment could be found, high crime and misdemeanor could be committed where, for instance, a lord admiral who was found to have neglected the safeguard of the sea. It is, perhaps, the most directly analogous comparison he makes to the Secretary of Homeland Security, that would be, you know, best described perhaps as a dereliction of duty, a failure to do one's job. If that--a lord admiral neglecting the safeguard of the sea--if that was a high crime and misdemeanor, it follows for sure--it is even more certain-- that the Secretary of Homeland Security, having defied more than a half dozen direct commands of Federal law and done the exact opposite of those things, has also committed a high crime and misdemeanor. Now, maybe some in this body disagree. Maybe some in this body believe that the facts are different than they have been alleged here. Well, that is what a trial is for. That is why we don't just take the word of the House of Representatives for it. We do our job over here. We have to review the accusation, and we have to review it against the backdrop of what arguments and evidence they present to us. We will be sworn in tomorrow at 1 p.m. to be finders of fact and to be judges of law relevant to the impeachment accusation. If we decide not to decide, we still have made a choice. We shouldn't do that here. Doing that here would be a dereliction of duty. Doing that here would be profoundly disrespectful to the hundreds of millions of Americans who elected us and, especially, to the families of those--like the family of Laken Riley and countless others--whose lives have been permanently and tragically disrupted by the lawlessness exhibited by Secretary Mayorkas. We must do our job. We must hold a trial. That trial must culminate in a finding of guilt or innocence. The Constitution and our commitment to it requires nothing less. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, the House impeached Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He is the second Cabinet official to be impeached in all American history. The last Cabinet member to be impeached was William W. Belknap in 1876. The Senate held trials in virtually all previous impeachments, except for those in which the impeached officer no longer held office. However, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer now wants to effectively pardon Secretary Mayorkas--pardon him from this impeachable offense, pardon him from the impeachment itself--without letting us even examine the evidence. No, the facts are not in dispute in this case. They are not in dispute in the least. If they were, there wouldn't be a need for a full trial. There would however, still, at a minimum, be a need to reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty because in literally every other circumstance in the history of the Republic--unless circumstances have arisen that have rendered the case moot--the U.S. Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, adjudicates the matter, whether through short proceedings or long ones, whether through a trial conducted on the Senate floor or by delegation to a select committee. It does, in fact, reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty, as is the Senate's constitutional obligation. But when the Articles of Impeachment arrive, we have to remember that we have a constitutional duty to hold a trial. Again, what that trial consists of may depend on the circumstances, but we still have to hold a trial sufficient to get to the point, in the absence of the case being rendered moot or something of that nature, to reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Now, I am so grateful to House Speaker Mike Johnson for delaying delivery of these so that we can give our full consideration. Ignoring the evidence before us betrays the trust of those who sent us here. In this spirit, I have introduced a resolution, a resolution to ensure that we are prepared to consider the impeachment articles in a manner befitting our responsibilities. You see, the Senate has three states of being. It is always either sitting in a legislative capacity, where we pass bills, we debate and amend and ultimately pass or decline to pass legislation; the Executive Calendar, where we consider Presidential nominations and consider ratification of treaties; or a third state of being, of course, consists of a Senate sitting as a Court of Impeachment. We are always in one of those three states. We have a separate set of rules governing our impeachment proceedings, but those rules aren't so specific as to define the precise details of each and every impeachment proceeding. Those have to be negotiated independently through resolutions. It is to that end that I offer this resolution to put meat on the bones of the Standing Rules of the Senate on impeachment trials. This resolution mandates that the Senate begin deliberations on the impeachment articles no later than 7 session days after the House of Representatives transmits them to the Senate. This timeline is not just for the Senate but so that the American people can hear from Secretary Mayorkas himself. He is afforded up to 7 session days to respond to the charges that will be presented to us by the House. Both parties in this debate would be permitted to submit trial briefs within specific deadlines, ensuring that all arguments are heard and considered with the gravity they deserve. It requires the House to file its records, including materials from the Judiciary Committee and documents related to Secretary Mayorkas's impeachment. These records, which are subject to scrutiny and objection by Mayorkas, are crucial evidence in our proceedings. My resolution lays out how motions and arguments will be carefully managed. Motions, except those to subpoena witnesses or documents, would be required to be filed before the proceedings start. The structure of the presentations and questioning would be designed to allow Secretary Mayorkas to comprehensively present his case. After the questioning period, we would proceed to final arguments and decide whether Secretary Mayorkas is guilty or not guilty. With my resolution, we would be ready to conduct a fair and legitimate trial. So, to my colleagues, if you are confident that the charges against Secretary Mayorkas are baseless, then why object to organizing a fair and legitimate trial? Why try to sweep this under the rug? Why pardon someone before they are even afforded the opportunity to prove their innocence? If you trust that Secretary Mayorkas didn't authorize millions of individuals to enter illegally into our country for swift and precursory release into the interior, don't object to my resolution; just hold a trial. If you are certain that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't, in fact, increased the pull factors incentivizing parents across the globe to send some 430,000 unaccompanied children into the United States--in many cases, to end up in the hands of traffickers--then, by all means, don't object; hold a trial. If you are confident that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't created at least 13 illegal immigration parole programs designed to increase the flow of people into this country by the hundreds of thousands, in violation of the very law invoked to facilitate their admission, then don't object; hold a trial. If you are so sure, so confident, so certain that, under Secretary Mayorkas, Customs and Border Protection hasn't dramatically decreased its vetting processes for allowing Chinese immigrants to cross our border with military-age Chinese males, don't object; hold a trial. If you believe that we haven't seen a dramatic increase in the known terrorist encounters at our southern border, don't object; hold a trial. If you are confident that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't allowed enough fentanyl to flow across the southern border to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States of America, don't object; hold a trial. An invasion, Madam President, is taking place on American soil. At least 8 million people--that is at the low end--have illegally crossed our border since Mayorkas became the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the numbers just keep rising. This unprecedented influx includes gang members. It includes drug traffickers, human traffickers, dangerous individuals from every single country in the world, including the thousands of military-age males from China. In December alone, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported 302,000 encounters. That is in 1 month--the highest number ever recorded in a 1-month period. These are not the kinds of records he should try to break, but he has broken them again and again and again. Now, to be clear, Secretary Mayorkas has the tools to stop this invasion--to halt it in its tracks--and he has the tools to do it today. Not only does he have the tools, but he has the obligation and the sworn responsibility under the laws of the United States to do so. He doesn't need legislative action from Congress. These aren't victimless crimes. The tragic case of Laken Riley--a life cut short by an illegal alien, one of the millions whom Secretary Mayorkas has allowed to enter our country unchecked--is a reminder of the human cost of this prolonged, severe, and deliberate malicious abdication of duty. Laken isn't alone. Her case represents hundreds of thousands of families across the Nation whose lives have been upended by the invasion that our leaders willfully allowed to happen and, indeed, invited. In fact, they encouraged them to happen. Should Secretary Mayorkas be found guilty, these are impeachable offenses of the highest order. Make no mistake, this is not mere maladministration. This is a deliberate, willful, malicious determination to break the law in order to bring in millions of people who do not belong here. There is no doubt, at this point, that the invasion of our southern border has inflicted pain and suffering on countless Americans. So we are obligated to figure out who is responsible and to make sure that they are held responsible. That is exactly why we are here. To that end, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 624; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. LEE. It is, indeed, unfortunate that this has happened. We have followed the model of previous resolutions that have been used in order to set up impeachment debates. This one was based off of one of the impeachment trials of the 45th President of the United States. These terms were agreeable under previous impeachment proceedings, and now they are not. This is not the kind of case in which the material facts are undisputed nor is this the kind of case in which the office held by the person impeached has been vacated either by death or resignation. And so, in order to comport with, comply with, to follow the precedents that we have consistently followed in this country that have been in place for some two and a half centuries--to say nothing of the constitutional obligation behind those precedents and those customs--we need to hold a trial. It is not enough simply to stand up and say: We are choosing not to address these. We don't feel like addressing these. We are going to decline to address them without a finding of guilt or innocence. This is not appropriate. So, if they don't like these particular terms, then perhaps we can find another resolution that will allow us to approach these proceedings with dignity and fairness as an institution, showing dignity and fairness to the accused and to the American people alike, including and especially those Americans who have been victimized by the acts of lawlessness carried out by this administration under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas. We have an obligation to do this. Absent one of the circumstances not present in this case, where the case becomes moot--this one is not. We have an obligation, regardless of what the precise procedures look like, to reach a verdict, to make findings, to convict or acquit, to reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty. It is wrong for us to ignore this duty, and it is also phenomenally dangerous. This precedent having been set will suggest that, from this moment henceforth, insofar as the party of the President of the United States is the same party that controls a majority of the seats in the U.S. Senate, Articles of Impeachment passed by the House of Representatives will be essentially dead letter, to be dismissed without a verdict-- without a finding of guilt or innocence, of guilty or not guilty. It would be a shame, and it would be a derogation of our constitutional responsibility. My hope, my expectation is that we can find some other means. If this one is not acceptable to the body, to my friend and colleague from Illinois, then perhaps another will, but we must keep trying. We can't pretend that we can simply table these. That is not what we are required to do here, and it is a derogation of our responsibility.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I submit the following notice in writing: In accordance with Rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend the following portion of paragraph 1 of Rule XXII: ``the motions relating to adjournment, to take a recess, to proceed to the consideration of executive business, to lay on the table, shall be decided without debate'' for the purposes of allowing debate on any motion to table made in relation to the Articles of Impeachment against Alejandro Mayorkas whether or not a full trial takes place.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, an invasion is taking place on American soil. Over 8 million people have crossed our border illegally since Mayorkas became Secretary, and the numbers just keep rising. They are not going away. This unprecedented, lawless influx includes gang members. It includes drug traffickers and dangerous individuals from every country in the world, including many thousands of military-age males from China. What could go wrong? In December alone, the Department of Homeland Security reported 302,000 encounters--in 1 month. This is the highest month ever on record. To be clear, Secretary Mayorkas has the tools to stop the invasion today. He could do it right now if he wanted to. It is almost turnkey. It is abracadabra. If he decided to do it, we could have a secure border, and we would. Not only does he have the tools, but he has an obligation and a responsibility, an affirmative duty under the laws of the United States--laws that he agreed he would faithfully enforce. Let me say that again just to be very clear. Just by enforcing the laws currently on the books, he could bring our state of utter lawlessness on the border to a state of order. Secretary Mayorkas could bring a complete stop to the crisis. He doesn't need legislative action from Congress. This isn't a policy disagreement. No, it is a blatant defiance of the laws that are already on the books and have been for years. So to my colleagues: If you are so confident that the charges against Secretary Mayorkas are baseless, then why not hold a trial? Why try to just sweep this under the rug? You realize, don't you, that when you do that, all that does is just make you look more conscious of what is going on, of what is being done that is so very, very wrong--especially where, as here, it is such a departure from nearly two and a half centuries of this institution operating faithfully as a Court of Impeachment, nearly two and a half centuries in which we have had 21 Articles of Impeachment destined for the Senate; at least 20 of those arrived. In 18 of those total of 21 cases during the Senate's existence, 18 of those 21 culminated in a trial resulting in a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Those other three involved cases that were rendered moot in between the time the House of Representatives adopted the Articles of Impeachment and the time they were presented over here. They were rendered moot because of the death or departure--a new vacancy in the office that had been occupied by the impeached official. So this isn't just an ordinary act of sweeping it under the rug. It is an act of sweeping it under the rug under the circumstances where sweeping it under the rug was never an option. It never has been. We haven't done it. This isn't just some invisible ``Casper the Friendly Ghost'' coming in to get rid of it. They are actively doing it, and they are doing it under the full view of the American people. The American people should be really upset by this, because Article I of the Constitution gives the House of Representatives the power to impeach and the Senate the power to try all impeachments. Remember, the Senate has only three states of being--exactly three states of being: the legislative calendar, where we do a lot of our work, where we consider law; Executive Calendar, where we do things like confirm Presidential nominees and consider treaties for ratification; and the third state of being for the Senate is as a Court of Impeachment. We are always in one of those three states of being, and yet we have never operated in that third state of being unless the case has been rendered moot where the Senate doesn't hold a trial, as it is required to do under the Constitution, culminating in a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Now, if you trust that Secretary Mayorkas didn't authorize millions of individuals to enter illegally into our country for swift and precursory release, then let's hold a trial. If you are certain that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't increased the pull factors incentivizing parents across the globe to send 430,000 unaccompanied children illegally into the United States, in many cases to have them end up in the hands of traffickers--drug traffickers and human sex traffickers and otherwise--then let's hold a trial. If you are confident that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't created at least 13 illegal immigration parole programs designed to increase the flow of people into this country by the hundreds of thousands, then let's hold a trial. If you are so sure that Secretary Mayorkas--under Secretary Mayorkas' leadership, Customs and Border Protection hasn't dramatically decreased its vetting process for allowing Chinese immigrants to cross our border, including military-aged Chinese males, then let's hold a trial. If you believe that we haven't seen a dramatic increase in the known terrorist encounters at our border, then let's hold a trial. If you are confident that Secretary Mayorkas hasn't allowed enough fentanyl to flow across the southern border to kill every man, woman, and child in this country, then let's hold a freaking trial. These are not victimless crimes. The tragic case of Laken Riley, a life cut short by an illegal alien, one of the millions whom Secretary Mayorkas has recklessly, intentionally, deliberately, and maliciously allowed to enter our country unchecked, unvetted, is a reminder of the human cost of this abdication of duty. Laken isn't alone. Her case represents hundreds of thousands of families across this Nation whose lives have been upended by the invasion that our leaders allowed to happen. Think about that for a minute. They allowed it to happen not by negligence, oversight, carelessness, inattentiveness. No, no, no. They encouraged it to happen. Should Secretary Mayorkas be found guilty, these are crimes of the highest order. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often in this country--the sort of thing that I hope we will never have to experience again; the sort of thing that otherwise would result in a Toby Keith song, may he rest in peace; the sort of thing that unites Americans in surprising ways. The American people understand something is terribly wrong, and they expect us to act. In all previous impeachments sent to the Senate, we held a trial, save those rare circumstances where the case was rendered moot by death or vacancy of the office--not facts present here. We held a trial, and that trial culminated, in each and every instance, in a verdict of guilty or not guilty. But the majority leader Chuck Schumer now seems to want to take the radical step, the unprecedented step, the lawless step, the counter- and anti-constitutional step of trying to table these Articles of Impeachment without even letting us examine the evidence. This begs the question: What would he do--what would he do--if he were confident, if the majority leader were confident that Secretary Mayorkas had acted lawfully, honorably, in this office? What would he do if he were confident the American people wouldn't turn on his party because of this act of lawlessness, this interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of their own border nonenforcement strategy? This is exactly what it looks like when someone is aware that there is a problem and wants to sweep the problem under the rug. There is no rug here. You can't hide this. There is no rug big enough to accommodate that. And shame on us if we play into that strategy. To colleagues on my side of the aisle and on the other, I implore you. I know many of us are institutionalists. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, no matter how far to the leftwing or rightwing or somewhere in between you are, I appeal to your sense that we have an obligation to take seriously our oath to the Constitution. We have an obligation that must be honored to look out for the institutional interests of the Senate and the role that it plays in the sacred order created by the U.S. Constitution. When the Articles of Impeachment arrive, we have a job to do. The Constitution and our rules and our precedents make that abundantly clear. To ignore the evidence before us is to betray the trust of those who sent us here. There is no doubt, at this point, that the invasion at the southern border has inflicted indescribable, incalculable, intolerable pain and suffering on the part of the American people. We are obligated to figure out who is responsible and hold them accountable, beginning with Secretary Mayorkas. I urge each of my colleagues to oppose this shameless effort to sidestep our constitutional duty and, by so doing, subvert the constitutional order. I yield the floor.