WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined Senate conservatives and impeachment managers from the House of Representatives in a press conference to discuss the importance of holding Secretary Mayorkas accountable for not faithfully executing the law. They called for conducting a full impeachment trial in the Senate in accordance with the Constitution. 

Watch the senator’s full remarks here.

On the convincing case against Mayorkas

“I think the House managers did an extraordinary job of putting together a very convincing case against Alejandro Mayorkas, and a very convincing case to hold a trial. I think Chairman Green did an excellent job of reading those Articles of Impeachment, and I agree with Senator Schmitt. Sitting there in the chamber listening to the gravity of those charges, I don't know how you cannot be moved, and I quite honestly can't imagine why Chuck Schumer would just summarily dismiss without even thinking of having a trial. If we were to proceed to a trial, we could lay out the evidence, and the chart that I've been developing since I became Chairman of Homeland Security back in 2015, this at trial would basically be the irrefutable DNA evidence of the crime. There's no way you can't look at that chart and say that what is happening on our border is a crisis…

“We had the border secure until President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas came into office and did not faithfully execute the law. That is the high crime and misdemeanor, because it has put Americans at risk. It has cost American lives. That's why the case is so compelling. That is why the Senate must hold a trial. And so, again, I commend the House managers for coming over, putting together a strong case against the Secretary, but a strong case to have a trial, and I don't know how you can listen to the case that the House managers laid out, the case they made here in this press conference and not understand how compelling a case it is. When you combine the abdication of his responsibility to enforce the laws, to faithfully execute them, combined with all the migrant crimes, the horrific crimes. I mean who let these people into this country by not faithfully executing the law? Isn’t that aiding and abetting those horrific crimes? So, again, the House managers deserved, deserve their day in court to present their case. And again, the Articles are pretty short. I don't think it’d have to take that much time, but I think they can make a very compelling case in a pretty short period of time. But we ought to be able to hear that case. And that's all we're asking for.”

On the magnitude of the lies told by Mayorkas before Congress

“Secretary Mayorkas has come repeatedly before Congress. And one of the charges is he's repeatedly lied to Congress. One of the biggest lies is we’d confront him with this evidence and he’d go ‘well there's no crisis. It's not, it's not a problem. It's a challenge, Senator.’ What this chart does, it shows cause and effect dating back to President Obama's lawless Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That is what has sparked all of this. But what I want to quickly concentrate on, because I want to turn it over to the House managers, is when President Trump faced his immigration issue where almost 5,000 people a day were crossing in a single month, he did something about it. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that current law exudes deference to the President, even though it's been weakened by things like the Flores reinterpretation decision. President Trump used that weakened executive authority, and he closed the border in 12 months. In addition to that, with COVID, he enacted Title 42 and expelled people under that Title. And so you can see the difference of the number of people coming in at that time. It's just miniscule.”

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