House shelves Massie’s bid to impeach Hegseth over Iran war
File photo: REUTERS
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill defeated an effort to impeach US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after opponents accused him of conducting a war against Iran without congressional authorization.
The House of Representatives voted to refer eight formal articles of impeachment to a committee, effectively killing the initiative that dissident Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced on Monday.
In his resolution, Massie asserted that Hegseth was “breaking the law and must be held accountable” for waging military operations in Iran for more than 90 days without legislative consent. The impeachment articles accused Hegseth of directing “extrajudicial killings” during a US military campaign targeting suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Earlier on Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, had predicted that the impeachment bid would fail. The House of Representatives voted 211 to 204 to transfer the resolution to the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee, where Thomas Massie stood as the sole Republican to vote against the transfer.
More than a dozen lawmakers, including 11 Democrats, missed the vote. Moving the measure to the panel effectively kills the effort because the current Congress has only a brief window remaining before Democrats take control of both chambers in January following their successful midterm election victories.
Impeachment resolutions can carry over past the end of a congressional term, which allows Democrats to take up the matter next year.
Political observers viewed the attempt to convict the cabinet secretary of misconduct and remove him from office as a long shot, as success would have required numerous Republicans to defy President Donald Trump.
Thomas Massie, who lost his re-election primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed candidate, has consistently criticized Trump and the war in Iran since the conflict began in February. Massie had also drawn the president’s anger previously by demanding that the Trump administration release files concerning the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Following the vote, Massie told CBS, the US media partner of the BBC, that he “wasn’t surprised” but “was disappointed”. Massie added, “My diagnosis of Congress is these people know what to do. They just can’t bring themselves to do it, even when it would benefit them politically.”
Massie had previously acknowledged that his impeachment attempt might not succeed immediately, but he argued that the effort could push Trump to replace Hegseth before Democrats launch their own impeachment process next year.
The Kentucky congressman also stated that removing Hegseth now would grant the Senate sufficient time to confirm a replacement while Republicans remain in power. Meanwhile, Trump celebrated the vote result on Truth Social, posting that the impeachment drive “has miserably FAILED”.
Trump wrote, “Again, Victories in Venezuela and Iran, the Best Recruitment Numbers in the History of the Military (Long waiting lists to get in!), and Spirit like rarely seen before, led to the EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot,” referring to Hegseth.
During his first news conference from the Pentagon in six months, Pete Hegseth called the impeachment effort a “farce” and “sabotage”. Speaking on Tuesday, Hegseth described the attempt to impeach him as a political stunt by a “disgruntled and defeated” opponent of the Trump administration.
Hegseth contended that Massie’s resolution endangered national security because it communicated to adversaries “that the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations. This is not patriotism. This is sabotage.”
Hegseth echoed statements that Trump made during an unannounced appearance at the White House briefing room on Monday, including touting rising military recruitment numbers. However, Hegseth emphasized that Massie acted out of policy differences and “not high crimes, not misdemeanours, not treason, not bribery, not the kinds of offences the founders intended when they wrote the impeachment clause.”
Although Hegseth has survived politically for the moment, many lawmakers - including several Republicans - continue to question how long he can remain in the administration. On Tuesday, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas publicly stated that he expected Hegseth to resign or face dismissal by Trump.
Source: BBC (adapted)
