Republican Congressman Forces Vote on Impeaching Pete Hegseth

Representative Thomas Massie presented eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Monday afternoon. 

Massie posted his draft resolution hours earlier on X with the message, “I’ve seen some of my colleagues say @SecWar Hegseth has been effective and they agree with the war, so they’ll vote not to impeach. That’s not the question though. The question is whether he committed impeachable acts, and the answer is yes, eight times.”

Those eight instances three counts of waging war on Iran without congressional authorization; ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties; conducting extrajudicial killings with U.S. strikes on so-called “drug boats” in the southern hemisphere; suppressing free speech by targeting Senator Mark Kelly’s criticism of U.S. military policy; the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without constitutional or legal authority; and waging war on Yemen without congressional authorization. 

Hegseth seems to have lost support from Trump as well as other Republicans in Washington. Trump told Fox News on Sunday that Hegseth was “one of the guys that was most responsible” for the Iran war. On the same day, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that he is a “hard yes” for impeachment. 

“The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe,” Jeffries said on ABC’s This Week. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.” 

House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to avert Hegseth’s impeachment for nearly two months, canceling votes in September until after the midterm elections because he didn’t have enough votes to defeat the vote. Massie’s resolution at the time was privileged, and had Johnson not dismissed the House early, it would have been voted on within two days. 

“If Trump’s going to replace appointees like Hegseth, he should do it while he can still get the replacements confirmed in the Senate,” Massie wrote on X Thursday.  “Also, my Hegseth impeachment resolution is a much gentler version of what’s coming when Dem’s control Congress. They’ll have hearings & trials.”

Massie said last Wednesday that Hegseth could avert the vote if he resigned. That may be Hegseth’s plan, as he has called a press conference at the Pentagon Tuesday. He is rumored to be seeking an appointment to Tennessee’s open Senate seat, although Tennessee Governor-elect Marsha Blackburn has reportedly ruled that out.  

Senator Chris Van Hollen is open to running for Senate majority leader, amid mounting calls for Senator Chuck Schumer to pass the torch.

Van Hollen has “received an outpouring of calls and is now in active listening mode,” a person familiar with the Maryland Democrat’s thinking told Politico’s Playbook Monday.

“The door is not shut,” the person added.

Speaking to Fox 5 last week, Van Hollen indicated that he was interested in pursuing a higher office—but not the one people are begging him to take. “I’ve made clear that I’m not looking to be the next Democratic leader,” Van Hollen said. “I’ve been kicking the tires on a 2028 presidential election.”

But the Marylander declined to commit his support to Schumer, who has led the Democrats in the Senate since 2017.

“I think it’s important that the Senate Democratic Caucus have a full and open debate before we select the next leader, whoever that may be. I don’t think it should be automatic. And I think we need to have a plan, and we need to make it clear we’re going to be united by a common plan,” Van Hollen said.

He doubled down on his comments over the weekend, arguing that “nobody should get a blank check” without a greater discussion in the Democratic caucus.

Van Hollen has emerged as a leading progressive, after he traveled to El Salvador when his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García was illegally deported to a foreign gulag.

Van Hollen wasn’t the only Democratic senator who held back on supporting Schumer: Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut also declined to endorse the longtime caucus leader.

At the same time, Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has publicly endorsed Van Hollen for the top post. “If he decides he wants to be Senate majority leader, I think he’d be amazing at the job,” El-Sayed told CNN last week.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to be on the verge of getting kicked out of Washington.

Capitol Hill Republicans—including the president—have started to turn on Hegseth publicly. The bombastic former Fox News host could face a House impeachment vote as early as this week.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie originally introduced a 34-page impeachment resolution against the Defense secretary in mid-September, accusing Hegseth of high crimes and misdemeanors, and specifically of abusing the power of his office by advancing Donald Trump’s war against Iran without congressional approval.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz suggested that “one of the reasons the House has been out of session for a couple months is because they didn’t have the votes to stop a Hegseth impeachment” when Massie originally announced the articles. That has not changed.

Massie told MS NOW Monday that he planned to force a vote on the impeachment resolution that afternoon. Several members of the GOP believe it will pass.

But some conservatives are mulling over other solutions that could similarly strip Hegseth of his authority. Speaking with CNN’s Manu Raju Monday morning, retiring Nebraska Representative Don Bacon said it would be easier if Hegseth just resigned.

“I’m weighing it,” Bacon said when asked about the proposed articles of impeachment. “Eight articles, and I’m not very sympathetic to those articles.”

“But the areas that concern me most about the secretary aren’t in the articles of impeachment: firing and redlining abiding generals or admirals; withholding appropriated money all year from Ukraine,” Bacon said. “I’m not the only one that feels this way, there’s a bunch of us that have been talking about it.”

“Some of us don’t feel comfortable with [Massie’s] justifications,” Bacon added, describing Massie’s approach as libertarian, “but I think there are other ones out there.”

Even Trump blamed Hegseth for the Iran war, one of the main reasons Republicans lost so badly last week, while speaking to Fox News from West Palm Beach, Florida on Sunday. Trump claimed that the Pentagon chief was “one of the guys that was most responsible” for the conflict.

Exactly what becomes of the bombastic “secretary of war”—or his political future—after such an ousting is unclear.

Last week, Trump mused about the possibility of effectively pushing Hegseth into Tennessee’s open Senate seat. Trump told reporters Hegseth would be “very popular” as a replacement for Governor-elect Marsha Blackburn. The Hill reported that Hegseth had shown interest in the job, and was actively campaigning for it behind the scenes.

But that’s unlikely to happen: A source close to Blackburn told the Associated Press Thursday that Hegseth was not in consideration for the seat, and dismissed the ongoing rumors as “baseless chatter.”

The Trump administration is hemorrhaging officials following Republicans’ crushing defeat in the midterm elections and Stephen Miller’s ascension to White House chief of staff. 

Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate resigned Monday, and White House deputy chief of staff Richard Walters handed in his resignation letter on Friday. That follows at least five other resignations of top officials in the Justice Department and the White House last week.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Shumate’s resignation in a post on X. “Under his leadership, the Division pursued important affirmative litigation to challenge sanctuary policies and delivered key wins in lawsuits against local policies that endangered federal law enforcement,” he wrote. “The Division also secured historic settlements to end illegal corporate DEI practices and shuttered dozens of clinics which were providing so-called ‘gender affirming care’ to minors. We are grateful for Brett’s service at DOJ and wish him continued success.” 

Shumate is the fourth DOJ official to resign in a week, following assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon quitting on Thursday as well as assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg and U.S. Attorney Jason Quiñones stepping down Friday. 

Walters, who resigned the same day as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, told The Daily Beast in a statement that “Serving President Trump has been the honor of a lifetime and I will always be thankful to Susie Wiles for the opportunity.” He was Wiles’s deputy for only six months, after previously working as executive director for  President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s inaugural committee. 

“Stephen [Miller] is building an incredible and capable team to implement the President’s agenda and I look forward to being part of it from the outside,” Walters added. 

Miller told Fox News in a statement that “While he will be leaving us, Richard will continue to help from the outside as we continue to work with all of our strength to deliver for President Trump and his courageous fight to Save America.” 

Despite these conciliatory statements, it’s obvious that people are fleeing the Trump administration due to the rise of one its most reviled officials in Miller—and the likelihood of being hauled before a Democratic Congress as part of a wide-ranging investigation. The DOJ in particular is going to be in Democrats’ crosshairs, and nobody wants to spend the next two years having to lawyer up and avoid subpoenas. 

Attorney General Todd Blanche has completely lost the plot.

The Justice Department chief effectively confessed on CNN Sunday that the historically independent agency will investigate Democratic lawmakers at Donald Trump’s behest.

Leaning on their forthcoming congressional majority, Democratic lawmakers have advertised their intent to use oversight tools to investigate alleged misconduct and corruption in Trump’s MAGA administration. The president attempted to preempt the looming inspection over the weekend by likening it to a “criminal act,” which he ordered Blanche to investigate.

When explicitly asked by State of the Union host Dana Bash on Sunday whether he would comply with the president’s directive, Blanche flippantly accused Democrats of threatening “anybody that’s conservative and anybody that happens to be a Republican.”

“And over the last several days, we have seen the rhetoric even rise up, to the point where they’re already—before they’re even in power, they’re already talking about investigations and impeachments, with no basis, no facts, just out there running around,” Blanche claimed. “That should be something that President Trump is very concerned about, and certainly I am as well.”

But Blanche seemingly could not keep his cool after Bash brought up Congress’s constitutional duty to provide oversight. “Is that what you’re concerned about?” asked Bash.

“Wait. Hold on a second. Sorry,” Blanche responded. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no, no. They have a very unique role in oversight. I agree. Have you been listening to the rhetoric the past couple days? You honestly think that all they’re doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they’re talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet, they’re talking about impeachments, they’re talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple of years?”

“That is not oversight,” insisted the attorney general. “I welcome oversight. Oversight is exactly something they should be doing.”

But amidst Blanche’s sprawling rant, he failed to identify a single criminal act by the Democratic Party. In another portion of the interview, Blanche concurred that it was his duty as the DOJ chief to represent administration officials during impeachment proceedings.

Contrary to Blanche’s opinion, the Justice Department is supposed to be independent and free from presidential interference. That’s been true since at least Watergate, after which the agency established interdepartmental policies and new political norms to distance its operations from the White House.

But that started to shift in 2024, when the Supreme Court sided with Trump to expand his presidential immunity. At the time, Chief Justice John Roberts penned a majority decision that effectively transformed the Justice Department into an arm to be leveraged by the Oval Office, opening communication channels between the federal law enforcement agency and the presidency for all future investigations.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly used the Justice Department for his own personal gain, directing prosecutors to lead his retribution campaign, to investigate election records, and to strongarm other federal institutions.