Massie Forcing Vote to Impeach Hegseth
GOP Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky announced today that he will force a floor vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his role in waging President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional war on Iran and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The eight-article bill of impeachment accuses Hegseth of trespassing the War Powers Act, extrajudicial killings, and wrongly kidnapping Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
Massie read the articles of impeachment on the House floor this afternoon.
First Four Articles
Massie has been the Trump administration’s bête noire since he helped force the release of the Epstein files and stood firm against Trump’s imprudent, unconstitutional war against Iran on behalf of Israel.
The Israel Lobby purchased his seat for an Israel First no-namer, so in some sense the Kentucky lawmaker is a lame duck.
But Massie keeps sticking his thumb in Trump’s eye.
Thus, the 34-page indictment of Hegseth.
Article I points to Congress’ warmaking powers in the Constitution and notes that it vests the president with control of the armed forces during a properly declared war. Noting that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 defines the circumstances in which a president can use the armed forces, the article alleges that Hegseth “executed unlawful orders in contravention” of the resolution.
With regard to the Iran war, Hegseth “directed and caused United States Armed Forces to be introduced into hostilities” even though Congress “had not declared war” or “enacted any specific statutory authorization,” and “no national emergency had been created by an attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
Those first three articles deal with Hegseth’s violations of the War Powers Resolution.
The fourth accuses Hegseth of “ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties” and murdering civilians, notably the students at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School. The Tomahawk cruise missile that hit the school killed 120 girls, 26 teachers, and seven parents.
According to the article:
[Hegseth created] a scheme or course of conduct that effected the systemic deterioration and removal of Department of Defense infrastructure that Congress had mandated by law to limit collateral damage to civilians and non-military objects during military operations.
While doing so, Secretary Hegseth also cultivated a warmaking culture at the Department Defense which he boasts [of] as being dismissive of “stupid rules of engagement” with [a] preference for “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”
Hegseth removed “without reason or cause” the top military judge advocates general. That crippled “independent legal oversight of combat operations and legal advice to commanders on the law of armed conflict.”
He also scrapped the Army’s casualty-tracking database that counts civilian casualties.
The article also says Hegseth illegally renamed his department from “Defense” to “War.”
Second Four Articles
Article V alleges that Hegseth authorized “extrajudicial killings” in the now famous attacks on drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean.
It alleges that he ordered the killing of 221 people in those boats. He “oversaw orders denying quarter and failing to provide rescue, including secondary strikes against shipwrecked survivors, who were hors de combat, and the abandonment of shipwrecked survivors at sea, thereby endangering members of … our Armed Forces in future military engagements by encouraging adversaries to subject American service members to the same treatment,” the article says.
Article VI alleges that Hegseth violated the free speech rights of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. A former astronaut and fighter pilot, Kelly flew 39 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm and received two Distinguished Flying Crosses.
When Kelly appeared in a video that told officers and enlisted personnel they can refuse illegal orders, the Pentagon opened an investigation. Hegseth warned he would be recalled for a court martial. Had his campaign to silence Kelly been successful, the article says, Hegseth “would have subjected the speech and congressional oversight activities of nearly twenty percent of the current Congress” and future members who are military retirees to department scrutiny. Other retirees would face the same trouble. And they would have no ”recourse outside the Department to vindicate their constitutional rights.”
Article VII accuses the Defense secretary of the “unprecedented” kidnapping of Maduro, “an act of war against a sovereign country executed under the guise of narcotics law enforcement, though in actuality intended to assert U.S. control over Venezuela’s oil reserves.”
Article VIII says Hegseth has waged an unlawful war against Yemen.
No Chance of Passing
Massie might get his floor vote on the charges, but the effort will likely fail. House Republicans are not going to impeach Hegseth, and even if they do, the Senate will not convict him.
As well, like the impeachment of former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which also applied to President Joe Biden, Massie’s allegations against Hegseth apply to Trump.
Hegseth was acting on Trump’s final orders in attacking Iran and kidnapping Maduro, for instance.
“He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders, and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech,” Massie said:
If we are to remain true to our oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Congress must not turn a blind eye to Secretary Hegseth’s unconstitutional and illegal actions.
