WASHINGTON Republicans are demanding a full Senate trial for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who was impeached by the GOP-controlled House earlier this year over charges that even some on the right have decried as thin and a waste of time .

But many of the Republicans who are insisting on a trial for Mayorkas supported an effort to dismiss Donald Trump s historic second impeachment trial following the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol before it even began. Only five GOP senators bucked their party in voting to allow that trial to proceed.

At a press conference on Capitol Hill this week, several conservative GOP senators said that if Democrats dont hold a full trial for Mayorkas, the top Biden official in charge of enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, it would set a precedent and hobble the impeachment process.

Chuck Schumer intends to nuke the impeachment clause of the United States Constitution, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said of the Democratic Senate majority leader on Tuesday. What Chuck Schumer is deciding is the Senate no longer has to try impeachments, but instead can hide behind procedural games.

Republicans also sought to evade charges of hypocrisy after their vote to dismiss the case against Trump in 2021, when he was charged with inciting an insurrection. At the time, Republicans argued that since Trump was no longer president, holding an impeachment trial would be unconstitutional.

Theres a difference between voting guilty or not guilty after evidence is presented, and tabling articles of impeachment so a trial never takes place at all, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, after a reporter noted the 2021 vote to dismiss Trumps impeachment trial.

Asked about the GOPs support for dismissing Trumps impeachment trial, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told HuffPost: I dont recall that worked.

The January 2021 vote to table Trumps trial was initiated by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who made a point of order declaring the proceedings unconstitutional. Paul made the motion just a day into the proceedings, before the House could present its impeachment articles against Trump.