House Republicans Block Effort to Impeach Pentagon Chief Hegseth

By Staff, Agencies 

House Republicans on Tuesday blocked an effort to impeach Pete Hegseth, rejecting allegations that the defense secretary had repeatedly violated the constitution through his handling of the Iran war and other conflicts globally.

The vote came a week after Republicans lost control of the Senate and House of Representatives in their worst midterm election in more than a half century, and underscored how lawmakers remain wary of crossing Donald Trump, who has signaled his continued support for Hegseth.

Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman who lost his primary after breaking with the president, had proposed impeaching Hegseth in September, declaring an array of illegal acts, including murdering civilians in Iran, launching unauthorized operations in Venezuela and Yemen, and retaliating against a Democratic senator.

Top Democrats announced their support for the resolution, but Republicans moved to kill it by referring it to the judiciary committee. Their motion succeeded on Tuesday, by a 211-204 vote, largely along party lines. Massie was the sole Republican to oppose the motion, along with all Democrats.

“The Democrats continue to weaponize and abuse the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social. “They must be stopped!”

The Pentagon, meanwhile, declared “total victory”.

“The referral of these baseless impeachment articles to the House judiciary committee marks total victory for Secretary Hegseth, the Department of War, and the American warfighter,” Sean Parnell, a department spokesperson, wrote in a social media post.

Tuesday’s vote is unlikely to be the final word on efforts to remove Hegseth from office, after Democrats won decisive majorities in the November midterm elections. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader who is expected to become the next speaker when Democrats take control of the chamber in January, has backed the push to impeach Hegseth, accusing the embattled secretary of having “undermined America’s national security”.

In an interview with PBS on Tuesday, Jeffries said he was “a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution”.

“He’s abused his power. He’s undermined our national security. And Pete Hegseth is the architect of this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has made our country less safe and made life more expensive for the American people,” Jeffries told the news outlet.

The resolution’s downfall took place hours after Hegseth held a defiant press conference at the Pentagon, where he dismissed the impeachment effort as a “political spectacle” orchestrated by the ousted Kentucky congressman.

“It’s a farce, and it’s a stunt, and everybody knows it,” Hegseth said.

The war on Iran has proven divisive with Republicans, and ahead of the midterms, small but growing numbers voted with Democrats on war powers resolutions intended to force Trump to bring the hostilities to a close. Warren Davidson, one of the House Republicans who voted for such resolutions, said he nonetheless rejected the idea of impeaching Hegseth.

“It’s an effort to blame-shift on to Hegseth Congress’s failure and President Trump’s decision,” Davidson said in an interview.

“I think Hegseth has been incredibly effective at restoring morale for the active-duty force, restoring the warrior ethos, the proper focus to the military that they exist to fight and win wars.”

The War secretary, a former Fox News host and army national guard officer, has been one of the most pugnacious members of Trump’s second term cabinet, and taken an unusually heavy-handed approach to managing the US military. Hegseth has orchestrated the departure of top generals, blocked the promotions of scores of officers, many of them women and people of color, and implemented new rules that prompted much of the press corps to leave the Pentagon.

He has also become the public face of some of the administration’s most politically costly policies, particularly the Iran war, which has dragged on for months while putting upward pressure on petroleum prices and played into Democrats’ hands in last week’s midterms.