Sen. Lankford to Newsmax: 'Terrible Precedent' to Refuse Mayorkas Trial

It will be a "terrible precedent" for the Democrat-controlled Senate to refuse to hold a trial on the House's articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Sen. James Lankford said Wednesday on Newsmax.

"The House has done an impeachment," the Oklahoma Republican said on "Wake Up America." "That means it should come for a trial in the Senate."

However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is not going to hold a trial, Lankford said. 

"They have the votes to be able to vote it down and to say we're going to ignore the House and the articles of impeachment," Lankford said. "[There have been] 21 impeachments in the history of our country, and not a single one has ever been tabled or dismissed. So this is a very significant event, if he chooses to do that."

Schumer has referred to the Mayorkas impeachment push being over a policy issue, Lankford said, while disagreeing. 

 This is a legal matter, as well as the House of Representatives and their managers laid out yesterday in the articles of impeachment to talk about how many times Mayorkas has either ignored the law or has just dismissed it outright," he said.

The only way there will be a trial is if two Democrats join with Republicans to call for the proceedings, Lankford added, but said he does not expect that to happen. 

"Of all the conversations that I've had, all of them have said they want to just dismiss this, set it aside, and not actually engage on this," Lankford said. "They just want this to go away. They don't want to talk about border security."

Lankford said Republicans will continue to focus on border security, even without an impeachment. 

"That's why I work so hard across the aisle to say, I think this is a national security issue that we've got to resolve," he said. "To just ignore the 5,800 people yesterday that illegally crossed our border and to be able day after day, these massive numbers of people in the thousands for us to be able to just reject that, and to say it's not a big deal is wrong. It is a national security threat."

Lankford also discussed the weekend drone and missile attacks on Israel and said that he believes Israel will "speak back" to Iran. 

An appropriate response would be to take out facilities that make drones and missiles, as well as radar facilities to make Iran more vulnerable while delivering a clear message that "you're not going to attack us," Lankford said.

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