Massie reintroduces articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth

Rep. Thomas Massie may not be returning to congress next year but he is determined to make the most of his last two months on Capitol Hill, starting with initiating impeachment proceedings against defense secretary Pete Hegseth, which he introduced on Monday.In a live feed, the Kentucky Republican issued the impeachment articles on the floor of the US House of Representatives ahead of a scheduled press conference Monday afternoon.It was not yet clear when a vote would take place but it will take place within the next two days under House rules. It will be the first major vote since Democrats’ landslide victory in the midterms last week. With vastly different dynamics today, there are better chances this could pass even with the current GOP majority, this time around.Massie initially introduced the legislation in September, but Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent members home before the House could hold a vote, seemingly motivated by a desire to avoid what would have been a politically tricky vote for party leadership. Johnson has denied that he made the decision to avoid a vote on Hegseth's impeachment.“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,” Massie wrote on social media on Monday. “That’s not the question though. The question is whether he committed impeachable acts, and the answer is yes, eight times.” Massie’s eight articles of impeachment accuse Hegseth of waging unlawful wars against Iran and Yemen, dismantling the DoD safeguards intended to protect civilians during a military conflict, and authorizing extrajudicial strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, among other offenses.In September, the congressman told Responsible Statecraft’s Kelley Vlahos that this was “the only legislative remedy that I could think of that might work” to bring about an end to the war in Iran.During that interview, Massie acknowledged that targeting Hegseth rather than President Donald Trump was a question of political viability. He also said some of the articles of impeachment, namely the degradation of the "infrastructure" in place to minimize civilian casualties and the attempted suppression of Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D-Ariz.) free speech, were squarely on Hegseth.“Peter Hegseth wins the award for most crimes committed,” Massie told RS in September. While the impeachment vote likely would have been close back in September, last Tuesday’s wave election has further complicated the politics for the GOP. Republicans have less incentive to remain loyal to the administration, and those who lost re-election may skip lame-duck session votes entirely, lowering the number of votes needed to secure a majority.“With the absences I expect from our side, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it passed,” an anonymous House Republican told Politico. “Assuming Trump doesn’t extricate him first.”The war in Iran was among the leading causes of the GOP’s crushing defeat at the polls, and Hegseth would make a convenient scapegoat. Though Trump has remained publicly supportive of the defense secretary, claiming he was only guilty of “winning two wars,” he also said on Sunday that Hegseth was one of the “guys that was most responsible” for the war.A Trump adviser recently told Axios that the defense secretary is on “thin ice” with the president, though they added that his removal was not imminent. Trump could be incentivized to remove and replace Hegseth before the new Congress is seated in January in order to avoid a potential nomination battle. Massie says he would only withdraw his articles of impeachment if Hegseth resigned. Since the congressman triggered his resolution, the Speaker of the House will have two days to bring it to a vote. If the House successfully impeaches Hegseth, two-thirds of the Senate would have to vote to convict him in order to remove the secretary from office. Reports today indicate that would be unlikely.Dan DePetris, syndicated columnist and fellow at Defense Priorities, is concerned that without full-scale changes in the administration, a Hegseth impeachment would be “cosmetic.”“Even if he’s impeached by the House and removed by the Senate — no sure thing given the congressional math — any successor won’t be an improvement if the lack of transparency persists and the same old policies on Iran and the Western Hemisphere continue,” DePetris told RS. “What the Defense Department needs just as much as effective leadership is a worldview that doesn’t result in wars with murky objectives and unnecessary military adventures, like the boat strike campaign, that are geared more toward social media visuals than actually mitigating a problem."