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\nRepublican Thomas Massie introduced the articles of impeachment against Pete Hegsth<\/p>\n
A Republican politician has moved to impeach US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran, setting up a potentially explosive vote in Congress just days after President Donald Trump’s party suffered a crushing midterm defeat.<\/p>\n
Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment accusing Mr Hegseth of illegally waging war without congressional authorisation and abusing his powers as Pentagon chief.<\/p>\n
The Republican-controlled House could vote as early as Wednesday, with some politicians from Mr Trump’s party signalling that they might join Democrats in supporting the charges.<\/p>\n
Impeachment would be a humiliating blow for Mr Hegseth and the Trump administration, but would not automatically remove him from office.<\/p>\n
That would require a trial and conviction by a two-thirds majority in the Senate — a far higher hurdle, even after Democrats take control of the chamber in January.<\/p>\n
The impeachment push has gathered momentum since Tuesday’s midterm elections, when Democrats swept both chambers of Congress amid widespread anger over the Iran war and soaring fuel prices.<\/p>\n
Republicans retain control of Congress until the newly elected politicians take office on 3 January, but their overwhelming defeat has fuelled recriminations and weakened party discipline.<\/p>\n
Some Republicans who lost their seats could also skip votes, potentially making it easier for the impeachment measure to pass.<\/p>\n
‘Hard yes’
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\nRepublican Thomas Massie introduced the articles of impeachment against Pete Hegsth<\/p>\n
Mr Massie, an outspoken critic of Mr Trump who lost his own primary to a candidate backed by the president, is using a special congressional procedure to force the House to consider his resolution within two legislative days.<\/p>\n
Republican leaders could still seek to block the measure through a procedural vote.<\/p>\n
The articles accuse Mr Hegseth of violating the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits the president’s ability to engage US forces in hostilities without congressional approval.<\/p>\n
They also allege misconduct involving civilian casualties and military operations in Yemen and Venezuela.
The Pentagon has rejected the accusations.<\/p>\n
Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become speaker in January, threw his weight behind impeachment yesterday.<\/p>\n
“I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Mr Jeffries told ABC News.<\/p>\n
“The so-called secretary of defence has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Pete Hegseth has got to go.”<\/p>\n
Several Republicans have expressed dissatisfaction with Mr Hegseth’s leadership without committing to impeaching him.<\/p>\n
Arkansas congressman French Hill said that he wanted to hear the debate before deciding whether the accusations justified impeachment.<\/p>\n
Unlikely removal<\/p>\n
Under the US Constitution, the House can impeach a senior government official by a simple majority vote, effectively bringing formal charges of serious misconduct.<\/p>\n
The Senate then decides whether to convict and remove the official from office, requiring support from two-thirds of senators present.<\/p>\n
Even with their enlarged majority next year, Democrats would need substantial Republican backing to reach that threshold. Only two Cabinet secretaries — almost 150 years apart — have been impeached in US history, and neither was removed by the Senate.<\/p>\n
Mr Hegseth has dismissed Mr Massie’s impeachment effort as a “sham,” calling the congressman “disgruntled” and accusing his opponents of pursuing political destruction.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon announced a rare press briefing by Mr Hegseth scheduled for tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump has publicly stood by his embattled defence chief, declaring last week: “I have every intention to keep him.”<\/p>\n
But the president’s weakened political position after the midterms has left Mr Hegseth facing the prospect of an impeachment battle that could extend well beyond this week’s House vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Republican politician has moved to impeach US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran, setting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-679924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}