The House voted 211 to 204 on Tuesday evening to send Rep. Thomas Massie’s eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee, ending the effort for the rest of this Congress.
Yesterday I told you President Trump had asked Congress to “stand up for Pete.” By 6:02 p.m. Tuesday, House Republicans had done exactly that.
How the vote went
After the chair ruled that Massie’s resolution was privileged, Rep. Darrell Issa moved to refer it to committee. According to the House Clerk’s roll call, 210 Republicans voted yes, joined by independent Rep. Kevin Kiley of California. Massie was the only Republican to vote no. All 203 Democrats who voted opposed the motion, and 11 Democrats and seven Republicans did not vote.
Massie called it a “procedural motion to kill the resolution.” Breaking Defense reported that reviving the matter in the next Congress would require a new resolution and a fresh start.
Hegseth: “It’s a farce”
Hours before the vote, Hegseth held his first Pentagon press conference in more than six months and did not give an inch.
“What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight and it’s not accountability. It’s a political spectacle,” Hegseth said. “It’s a farce and it’s a stunt, and everybody knows it.”
He said the charges amounted to impeaching him “for success.” “None of these are high crimes or misdemeanors,” he said. “They’re partisan policy disagreements from people who want to politicize our military.”
He defended every operation named in the articles. “I stand behind every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow.”
Hegseth compared the effort to the two impeachments of President Trump. “Both times he came back stronger, and the American people sent him back to the White House,” he said. “Now they’re trying a third time, this time against a member of his Cabinet. They will fail again.”
President Trump weighed in on social media, writing that Hegseth “gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!”
What Massie charged
Massie’s 34-page resolution accused Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution in the Iran campaign, of a strike that hit an Iranian school, of retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly, of the operation that captured Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, of an “unlawful” war in Yemen and of the strikes on drug boats. Massie, who lost his primary to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein and leaves Congress in January, says revenge has nothing to do with it. “The argument here is that he’s broken laws and he’s violated the Constitution,” he said Monday.
Democrats, who take the House majority in January, voted as a bloc against shelving the articles.
The bottom line
I am glad the House did not let a defeated congressman on his way out the door use the most serious tool in the Constitution to settle policy arguments. Capturing Maduro and striking drug boats are decisions a Commander in Chief and his secretary are supposed to make, and Congress has plenty of ways to argue about war powers short of impeachment.
Hegseth was right to stand at the podium and own every decision.
This fight is not over. Democrats will hold the gavel in January and many of them want Hegseth gone. Republicans held the line by seven votes on Tuesday, and they will need that same unity for the two years ahead.