WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has survived an attempt to impeach him over the war with Iran, after the House of Representatives voted 211-204 on Tuesday to send the charges to committee, a move that all but ends the effort in this Congress.
The resolution was brought by Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who filed eight articles of impeachment on Monday. He accused Hegseth of fighting a war in Iran for more than 90 days without the approval of Congress, and of overseeing “extrajudicial killings” in the US campaign against boats that Washington says carry drugs in the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Every Republican except Massie voted to refer the measure to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee instead of letting it go to the floor. With only weeks left in the current Congress, the referral leaves it with almost no chance of moving.
The margin was seven votes. More than a dozen members missed the ballot, among them 11 Democrats, several of whom blamed traffic in Washington for their absence. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic senator-elect from Michigan, told them: “You should show up and do your job.”
‘This is sabotage’
Hegseth dismissed the effort at a Pentagon news conference before the vote. “It’s a farce, and it’s a stunt and everybody knows it,” he said. “These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it’s the job well done.”
He said the resolution told US adversaries “that the United States will actually punish its own warriors and its own civilian leadership for successfully executing lawful military operations.” He added: “This is not patriotism. This is sabotage.”
President Donald Trump welcomed the result on Truth Social, saying the effort “has miserably FAILED” and calling the vote the “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot.”
A second round in January
Massie, who lost his re-election bid earlier this year to a Trump-backed opponent, said he “wasn’t surprised” but “was disappointed.” “My diagnosis of Congress is these people know what to do,” he said. “They just can’t bring themselves to do it, even when it would benefit them politically.”
He had argued that removing Hegseth now would give the Republican-held Senate time to confirm a replacement before Democrats take control of both chambers in January, after their gains in the midterm elections. Impeachment can be taken up again in the new Congress.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, said: “This is not the end of it. It’s just the beginning.” El-Sayed went further and called on Hegseth to resign, blaming the war for rising fuel and food prices at home. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, said he expected Hegseth to resign or be fired.
