WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is set to vote Tuesday on whether to advance an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has accused lawmakers of undermining American troops in war zones by targeting him over mere “policy disagreements.”
The procedural vote will either block the impeachment resolution or set up a final vote Wednesday. With Democratic leadership backing the effort brought by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, the outcome will likely hinge on whether Republican lawmakers break ranks after their sweeping losses in the midterm elections.
Hegseth dug in for a congressional fight in his first news conference in months on Tuesday, portraying Massie as a rogue lawmaker and arguing that he had committed none of the high crimes required in the Constitution for his removal. He framed the effort as an indictment against the nation’s service members and their successes while undermining American forces “in real time.”
“This is not patriotism,” Hegseth said. “This is sabotage.”
Massie’s resolution includes eight counts of impeachment. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.
Massie, a Kentucky Republican leaving Congress in January after losing his primary to a Trump-backed opponent, says Hegseth has “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders.”
Hegseth holds rare press conference
Tuesday morning, Hegseth gave a defiant and politicized defense of his stewardship of the U.S. military in his first news conference at the Pentagon in six months. He chose to hit back at the rising bipartisan anger over battlefield strategy while offering few details about intermittent operations against Iran or fatal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America.
President Donald Trump praised Hegseth’s performance at the briefing in a social media post, while Vice President JD Vance said in his own post that the impeachment effort is “a ridiculous show that stands in for actual policymaking.”
Hegseth said the impeachment resolution “tells our enemies — Iran, the cartels, every adversary watching — the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations.”
An impeachment vote is looming in the House
Massie filed the resolution in the House on Monday, giving Republican leaders two days to bring it to a vote. Tuesday’s vote is a procedural attempt to stop the impeachment push outright by sending the matter back to committee.
If the impeachment resolution advances, it would set the stage for a dramatic vote Wednesday on whether to impeach a key Trump Cabinet member following sweeping losses for Republicans in last week’s midterm elections, which many at least partly blamed on the Iran conflict and its economic impact. If the resolution were to pass the House, it would ultimately be sent to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed for Hegseth’s removal.
“The law requires our military to withdraw from hostilities within 60 days if Congress does not authorize the activity,” Massie wrote on social media Tuesday. The Iran war “has been underway for 256 days. Congress has not authorized it. Hegseth is breaking the law.”
What constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not spelled out in the Constitution, leaving it to lawmakers to decide what are impeachable acts.
Hegseth said Massie’s concerns are not impeachable, calling them “policy disagreements, not high crimes, not misdemeanors, not treason, not bribery, not the kinds of offenses the founders intended when they wrote the impeachment clause.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called it a “political gambit for attention” and predicted that Republicans would defeat it “one way or the other.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is on the cusp of becoming the nation’s first Black House speaker, said Monday that he is a “hard yes” on the resolution. He called Hegseth the “architect” of the war in Iran.
In the Senate, meanwhile, next steps were uncertain if the impeachment resolution cleared the House.
Outgoing GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Tuesday that she wants to ensure “that the right information is flowing from the Pentagon to the president.”
“Is he being truthful in the way the war is going?” Ernst said of Hegseth.
This isn’t the first impeachment attempt in recent years
Hegseth cast Massie’s resolution in historic terms, arguing that no defense secretary has been impeached in the nation’s 250-year history “for carrying out lawful military operations.”
But more recently, a Cabinet official in President Joe Biden’s administration, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, was impeached by House Republicans over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. But the Senate dismissed all impeachment charges, shutting down his trial before arguments even began.
Mayorkas, who did not appear to testify before the impeachment proceedings, put the border crisis squarely on Congress for failing to update immigration laws during a time of global migration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had said then, in April 2024, that House Republicans’ charges failed to meet “the high standard of high crimes and misdemeanors” and could set a dangerous precedent.
Republican Rep. Nick LaLota, who voted to impeach Mayorkas, said he didn’t believe Hegseth had committed any impeachable offense.
“Impeachment has been watered down,” LaLota said.
Before Mayorkas, no sitting Cabinet secretary had ever been impeached. It was nearly 150 years ago that the House voted to impeach President Ulysses S. Grant’s war secretary, William Belknap, over a kickback scheme in government contracts. He resigned before the vote.
Trump offers support for Hegseth
Trump has backed Hegseth in the wake of Massie’s impeachment resolution, pointing to the U.S. military raid to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January as well as operations against Iran that he asserts have “obliterated” its navy and air force.
“Pete Hegseth gets an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social.
Iran, however, has been able to keep striking U.S. military bases in the Middle East and has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the more than 8-month-old conflict, driving up global oil prices.
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