A Republican congressman takes the first step to begin the impeachment of Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth

The impeachment trial against US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has already begun. This Monday, the Republican representative for Kentucky, Thomas Massie, presented a resolution in the House of Representatives to begin an impeachment process against the head of the Pentagon, detested by Democrats and with few sympathizers among the Republican ranks for his role in the war against Iran after the debacle of last Tuesday's midterm elections.

The drums of war around Hegseth have been louder and louder in recent days. Congress, which returned to activity this Monday after the Democratic avalanche in the midterms on November 3, has set the opening of the impeachment trial against the head of the Pentagon as one of its first priorities.

The impeachment process is the first against a representative of the current Administration, and a measure of the extent to which the election results may have weakened Donald Trump's Government.

Massie's initiative will have to pass a vote in the House of Representatives, which could take place this Wednesday. If it receives majority support, it will head to the Senate.

Since last week, all eyes were on Congressman Massie, a great enemy of United States military interventions abroad and who already in mid-September took the first steps to open a political trial against the former presenter of the Fox News television network. Then, the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, opted for administrative silence and delaying the process. Meanwhile, the recess of the House of Representatives for the elections was brought forward, which caused the initiative to be quietly shelved.

Massie, who will not renew his seat in the new legislature that will debut in January, had declared that the only thing Hegseth could do to stop the process was to resign voluntarily himself. And Democrats have already shown themselves willing to support their Republican colleague's measure without reservation. “A resounding yes,” said the head of this group, Hakeem Jeffries, when asked about his position and that of his party over the weekend.

It is not clear if there is enough time to proceed with the complete process in the time left in this Congress, two months, before the new legislature, with a Democratic majority, takes office in January. But the mere fact that the impeachment process began already leaves Hegseth very politically affected, although Trump has defended him on several occasions since last Tuesday's elections.

"He is guilty of two things, basically of winning two wars... I think we saved the Middle East and Israel together. And it is terribly difficult to say that we should open an impeachment trial against someone who achieved that," Trump told reporters on Sunday upon his return to Washington from Florida, where he had spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago mansion.

The case against Hegseth is more complicated than Trump declares. The accusations accuse him of having started the war with Iran without the permission of Congress. It also includes “illegal legal attacks” against drug trafficking suspects in the Caribbean.