Highlights: Senate rejects impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Mayorkas

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Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said that the House's impeachment of Mayorkas was political and that it would have set a worse precedent to move forward with a trial. "This is a different process than we would run other impeachments," he said. "I judge the danger of normalizing the House impeachment process as much graver than the 'dangerous setting of the process/precedent in the Senate.' There was nothing close to high crime or misdemeanor. ... Everyone knows it. It would be irresponsible for us to treat it as serious exercise." Murphy was the lead Democratic negotiator on a bipartisan border bill that Mayorkas helped craft earlier this year, but which Republicans rejected. "The irony of all of this is that Mayorkas was in the room for all the negotiations at the request of the Republicans who just voted to proceed to an impeachment trial. ... If we’ve done a trial, and you’d gotten to a final vote, many of those Republicans would have voted against impeachment, I acknowledge that. But Mayorkas was in the room because of the credibility he has with Senate Republicans," Murphy said. "That’s why it’s so wild to me that he is such a subject of animosity for House Republicans because, in the Senate, he seems to have a decent amount of credibility, notwithstanding legitimate disagreements Senate Republicans have with Biden’s immigration policy."