Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives closed ranks on Tuesday to block an effort to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The impeachment attempt was spearheaded by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who was seeking to oust Hegseth largely over his handling of the U.S. war with Iran.
Members of the House voted 211 to 204 to refer Massie’s impeachment resolution to a committee, effectively killing it for the remainder of this session of Congress.
The result preserves Hegseth’s job, at least for now.
The new Congress, with Democrats in the majority in both House and Senate following their sweeping midterm wins, could resume a new impeachment push against Hegseth after its swearing in takes place on Jan. 3.
However, it’s unclear whether the Democrats will want to make going after Hegseth a top priority.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives blocked an effort to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Tuesday. The impeachment attempt was spearheaded by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who was seeking to oust Hegseth largely over his handling of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. The result preserves Hegseth’s job, at least for now.
“This is not the end of it. It’s just the beginning,” Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Capitol Hill after the impeachment vote. Democrats will hold a sizable majority in the House come January, with at least 256 seats.
Massie, who won’t be in Congress when the new session begins in January, was the only Republican member of the House to break ranks on the vote.
Eleven Democrats and seven Republicans did not vote on the resolution, according to the tally posted by the House clerk.
Trump calls vote an exoneration of Hegseth
The articles of impeachment drawn up by Massie alleged that Hegseth committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including launching the war in Iran with neither congressional authorization nor an imminent threat, as well as ignoring laws about minimizing civilian casualties.
U.S. President Donald Trump celebrated the vote result in a post on social media, calling it the exoneration of a great American patriot.
“The Democrats’ attempt to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has miserably FAILED!” Trump wrote in the post on his Truth Social platform. “The Democrats continue to weaponize and abuse the United States of America. They must be stopped!”
Trump has at least publicly shown nothing but firm support for Hegseth, giving the former Fox News personality a grade of “A PLUS, PLUS, PLUS” in a social media post earlier Tuesday before the vote.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky speaks Monday outside the Capitol about articles of impeachment against Hegseth. (Allison Robbert/The Associated Press)
Jesse Richman, an associate political science professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., says Trump has a history of saying he supports someone on his team right up until the moment he pushes them out.
“There’s no guarantee that even with positive things, supportive things [Trump] is saying now, he might not change his mind [about Hegseth] at some point,” Richman told CBC News.
Richman said Trump may however want to keep Hegseth on because of how difficult it would be to get a replacement confirmed by the Senate once the Democrats form the majority in January.
Tuesday’s vote came after Hegseth forcefully defended himself in a morning news conference at the Pentagon.
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He said impeachment proceedings would be a “show trial against the president and the secretary of war” and he characterized the articles of impeachment as “policy disagreements” that don’t meet the impeachment standard of high crimes and misdemeanours.
“The proper remedy for a policy disagreement, it’s legislation, it’s debate, it’s the next presidential election,” said Hegseth, holding his first press briefing from the Pentagon since May.
U.S. President Donald Trump again backed his Secretary of War Pete Hegseth after outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie launched impeachment efforts over Hegseth’s handling of the Iran war and extrajudicial strikes against alleged drug boat operators.
The articles of impeachment in Massie’s motion begin with the lack of congressional authorization for the war in Iran. The articles also reference Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela, and the deadly strikes on boats allegedly transporting drugs in waters near South America.
Massie had introduced a similar measure in September, but the House legislators were sent home before a vote could occur.
Hegseth denies Maduro was kidnapped
“I stand behind every one of these operations,” Hegseth said on Tuesday. He said “thousands of American lives” were saved with every boat strike — even as human rights organizations and international bodies have said they possibly constitute crimes against humanity.
Hegseth also said that former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro was “not kidnapped, he was brought to justice by America’s best.”
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The articles also refer to attempts to prosecute Congress members Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin after they recorded a video advising service members they were not obliged to follow illegal orders.
Massie, who was defeated earlier this year by a Trump-backed Republican opponent in a primary, pushed forward an impeachment resolution over the objections of House Republican leadership, with outgoing Speaker Mike Johnson saying it would be “a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see.”
The last House impeachment was of former Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas in Joe Biden’s administration in 2024, for breach of public trust and willful refusal to comply with the law. The Republican-led House cited the surge of migrants at the southern border in just the second ever impeachment of a cabinet secretary, but the Democratic-led Senate then never took up the measure.
Trump was twice impeached in the House, in 2019 and 2021, but acquitted at Senate trials. In the second impeachment, many Republicans argued that Trump’s actions leading up to the 2021 Capitol riot were best dealt with in the courts, but Trump completed a remarkable political comeback before criminal indictments he faced were resolved legally.
Hegseth called those Trump impeachments failures and predicted that the current efforts “will fail again.”
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What constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanours” is not spelled out in the Constitution, leaving it to lawmakers to decide.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska has highlighted other concerns not contained in the articles, including Hegseth’s firing of dozens of senior military leaders, but he also questioned Massie’s motives.
“If we were allowed to amend it, I’d maybe feel a lot of differently,” said Bacon.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who has been critical of Hegseth, told reporters on Tuesday he wasn’t a fan of the impeachment articles in their present form. (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)
Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said, “blaming Hegseth for a duty Congress shirked and the president made is wrong.”
“This isn’t about Iran, this about the fact that Pete took on the bureaucracy at the Pentagon,” said Vice-President JD Vance.
Vance broke a tie in the Senate to enable Hegseth’s confirmation in early 2025. Republicans Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell — each set to leave Congress — voted against his confirmation, as did Republican Lisa Murkowski and all of the Senate Democrats.
Thom Tillis, a Republican also leaving the Senate, has expressed regret for his vote to confirm Hegseth, saying in part in September that the secretary “retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defence.”
Democrats and a handful of Republicans questioned Hegseth’s fitness for the job nearly two years ago. Hegseth admitted paying a settlement to a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her, in order to prevent a costly and drawn-out process.
His confirmation hearings also included allegations of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement at two veterans’ organizations he previously led.
During Trump’s first term, Hegseth was an on-air Fox News contributor who lobbied the president on behalf of three service members who faced accusations of war crimes in military tribunals, arguing they were being treated unfairly.
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Trump ultimately granted clemency to two of the men, and elevated a third in rank.
Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon has been unconventional, and that was on display on Tuesday. Defence secretaries typically stay away from partisan political statements, but Hegseth laid out criticisms of predecessor Lloyd Austin and disparaged the military recruitment and retention efforts of Biden’s administration.
He also told the U.S. troops to “stay the course” while evoking his Christianity, even as he has been sued for imposing his religion on federal workers.
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