The countdown to the impeachment trial against Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, for his role in the war in Iran is advancing, while the head of the Pentagon makes it clear that he is going to fight tooth and nail to continue in the Government. In a press conference this Tuesday in his department, he declared that the measure “represents a farce, and everyone knows it.”
In the opinion of the Secretary of Defense, the process that began this Monday "is not about supervision or accountability. It is a political maneuver, a personal manifesto driven by the ego and resentment" of the congressman who has raised the impeachment process, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie.
Throughout his half-hour appearance, in which he maintained a sometimes exasperated, sometimes condescending tone, Hegseth tried to present the initiative against him as a kind of personal vendetta by a “resentful congressman.” But the war is hugely unpopular: 71% of Americans – 93% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans – want Congress to end it, according to an Ipsos poll for Reuters published this Tuesday. And other Republican lawmakers have also been critical of Hegseth's management.
The impeachment process “is the attempt by a man, in his last days in Congress, to cause harm to this president, to this country and – what is even more irresponsible – to the combatants who defended him,” continued the head of the Pentagon, who dedicated most of his appearance to reading a statement already prepared, and who seemed to direct his comments not to the general public, but to a very specific viewer: the president of the United States, Donald Trump himself.
The fact that it was not a legislator from the Democratic opposition, but a Republican from the party of Hegseth and President Donald Trump, makes the step especially painful and irritating for the Administration. Its development will represent an indication of how weakened the Government may have been after the Democrats' overwhelming victory in the midterm elections a week ago, in which they won a large majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
According to Hegseth, Massie's initiative amounts to "sabotage." “It sends a message that the United States is capable of punishing its own combatants and civilian leaders for successfully carrying out legitimate military operations.”
As he has done on other occasions when he has been forced to account, the Pentagon chief has tried to present the pressure against him as an attack on American forces, and on himself as the military's great protector against external abuses. "They answered the call, they carried out (the orders), they won. And on the eve of Veterans Day, Nov. 11, these (impeachment) resolutions tell each of them that their service was a crime." And he continued: “if they want to go after the warriors, they will have to deal with me first.”
In itself, the call for the press conference at the Pentagon already represents something unusual: Hegseth has not offered a call to answer questions from the media in his Department since May, once the large-scale bombing phase of the war against Iran concluded. The Secretary of Defense did not submit to media scrutiny when a Navy commander was killed in a helicopter crash in the Gulf area or when three US service members were killed in an Iranian missile attack on a base in Jordan on July 17.
Massie has filed eight charges - articles of impeachment, in Congressional parlance - against Hegseth, for his role in the war against Iran, the bombing of alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the use of his office to harm political rivals. Hegseth's political accusation now opens a 48-hour period for a vote to be held in the House of Representatives to decide whether to approve the charges against him.
President Donald Trump has so far defended the former host of the conservative television network Fox News tooth and nail. In a comment on his social network, Truth, the president has described Massie as an “absolute loser” and has accused him of “trying to remove perhaps the most popular and most successful high-ranking military official in the country.”
“Given that military recruitment is at an all-time high (...) and he has scored two victories, Venezuela and Iran, Pete Hegseth should be praised, not impeached,” wrote the president, who has called on Congress to “stand up for Pete.”
It is likely that the House will approve the charges, as it only requires a simple majority, 218 votes. The Democrats have 214 and will support the impeachment, so only the support of three other deputies from the Republican group would be needed, in addition to Massie.
Although the impeachment can go ahead in the House of Representatives, it would then have to go to the Senate, where it is unlikely to succeed: there it requires 67 votes in favor, those of two-thirds of the senators. Until the new legislature opens in January, Republicans occupy 53 seats, compared to 47 for Democrats.
Massie has predicted that Hegseth will be removed in the coming weeks and that he “won't make it to December 31” in office. In an interview with the CNN television network, the Republican legislator has expressed the opinion that the impeachment process is a “soft” measure compared to the wave of investigations that the Democrats want to launch once the new legislature takes office in January.
"I am not saying that he goes to prison, nor that he faces civil responsibilities. We are simply saying that he must leave his position immediately," explained Massie, who warned that the next Congress with a Democratic majority will present to testify "people who served under Hegseth", people who "know things that are not yet in the public domain."
Massie's resolution accuses Hegseth of authorizing, supporting and promoting military operations that lacked “defined objectives, legal authorization or clear strategic need.” Thus, the document continues, it exposed members of the United States Armed Forces to “substantial and foreseeable” risks of injury or death.
But the text is not limited to Hegseth's actions in Iran. It also accuses the Secretary of Defense of withholding information on civilian casualties in Venezuela and other military theaters and of “denigrating” women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color serving in the United States, “among other things by forcibly separating transgender people from the service.”
After Massie's initiative, Democrats have been very critical of the Secretary of Defense. The head of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has declared that the Upper House "must put Pete Hegseth on trial so that we can fire him for his catastrophic failure in Iran."
