Republican Thomas Massie's effort to impeach Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth for his “unconstitutional” war in Iran, among other crimes, suffered a setback tonight in the House of Representatives. The preliminary vote, which was to refer the eight charges to a parliamentary commission, in a process prior to the final vote in plenary, was rejected with a result of 211 to 208 votes.
Although throughout Tuesday it seemed that Massie had obtained the vote of enough congressmen in his ranks, he was finally the only Republican who voted against blocking the measure, in the same sense of vote as all the Democrats present. This result does not, however, mean the end of the attempt to hold Hegseth accountable: the Democrats have promised that they will begin the impeachment process in January, when Congress is renewed with their large majorities that emerged at the polls last Tuesday (255 to 167).
The result gives the Secretary of Defense, in the eye of the storm after the Republicans' disastrous results in the midterms, more time than many Republicans, including Vice President J.D. Vance, they blamed the war in Iran. After half a year without giving a press conference at the Pentagon, Hegseth defended himself on Tuesday by attacking Massie, whom he accused of attempting “sabotage” against the United States.
“What a disgruntled and defeated congressman is trying to do is not an oversight task or an accountability exercise,” he said of the wayward lawmaker, who will leave the House of Representatives in January after losing in the primary to a candidate supported by the president, Donald Trump. “It is a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment.”
In reality, the attempt to hold the head of the Pentagon accountable is not only political, it is also legal: it concerns the United States Constitution, which gives Congress the power to authorize a war, and the War Powers Act of 1973, which establishes that a president must consult him before ordering the use of force and withdrawing troops if he does not receive his authorization within 60 days. In practice, however, Congress has not declared a war since World War II and power has been progressively ceded to the president.
To impeach Hegseth, there must be a simple majority in the House of Representatives, something that will happen starting in January. However, to achieve his conviction and, therefore, his removal from office, two-thirds of the Senate is required, which seems impossible at this time. In the absence of finishing the count, the Democrats won 54 senators last Tuesday, far from the 67 necessary seats.
In addition to the illegal war in Iran, in his impeachment articles, Massie also accused Hegseth of ordering more than a hundred “extrajudicial murders” in the Caribbean and the Pacific against alleged drug gangs, the “kidnapping of a sovereign foreign leader” with the capture of Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro in the new year, or the “illegal war in Yemen”, as well as his accusations against senator and military officer Mark Kelly, whom he threatened with demoted in rank for public statements.
