Republicans’ Dilemma on Mayorkas Impeachment: When to Take the Loss

After approving impeachment articles against Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, that are doomed in the Senate, House Republicans are facing a confounding question: How — and when — do you take a political loss in the least embarrassing way?

It has been nearly a month since House Republicans impeached Mr. Mayorkas by a single vote, racing ahead with a case that constitutional scholars called groundless before Democrats won a special election in Long Island and wiped away the majority support needed to approve the charges. But instead of quickly sending the articles over to the Senate to try to force out one of the officials they blame for chaos at America’s southern border, Republicans have sat on them.

There is little mystery about why G.O.P. leaders know their impeachment case will swiftly collapse in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where even Republicans have cast substantial doubt on the exercise.

Leaders are expected to dispense with a trial quickly, either by dismissing the charges immediately or moving to a quick vote in which Republicans have no chance of securing the two-thirds necessary to convict and remove Mr. Mayorkas. They are taking their time before suffering that high-profile defeat.

“They know it’s dead on arrival,” said Senator Joe Manchin III, the conservative Democrat from West Virginia. “So they want to play with it like it’s still hanging out there. They’ll use all the leverage they can get out of it, and get all the mileage they can get out of it, because once it gets here, we’ll bring it up and shoot it down and it’s gone.”

Democrats who control the Senate regard the impeachment as a fact-free partisan smear of a Biden administration official. They have made clear that they plan to dismiss the matter quickly rather than waste floor time with it.