Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas faces Congress as Republicans prepare to escalate attacks against him, while a panel investigating misconduct charges is poised to yield a Democratic report on the Department’s response to the 2012 Benghazi assault.
“I’m not worried about that,” Mr. Mayorkas said in an interview.
The government will “continue to do the work that we have to do and that is to be the honest broker and the partner,” he said, even as Congress and the Trump administration clash over the administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Mr. Trump’s first Cabinet nominee was confirmed with a vote of 68-30. The Senate voted 61 to 34 to approve Mr. Mayorkas, whose nomination was held up in the Senate for more than two months by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, one of Mr. Trump’s fiercest opponents.
Mr. Mayorkas has become emblematic of the discord in the Trump Administration, with a White House that has moved in opposite directions over how to respond to the Benghazi attack and the handling of the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and longtime critic of the administration, has been a persistent thorn in the side of Mr. Trump, particularly over the handling of the Benghazi attack, while the GOP is pushing for a special counsel appointee to investigate the matter. The Senate is also set to vote next week on whether to allow an article of impeachment against Mr. Trump to be considered in the House, a long-sought-after step that would allow a chamber to formally launch an inquiry.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has struggled to find common ground with the White House and Department of Homeland Security on the issue of cybersecurity and Mr. Mayorkas’s nomination became entangled in one of the most polarizing battles in the Trump administration as soon as it was announced.
Mr. Trump cited Mr. Mayorkas’s
