U.S. House to Vote on Impeaching Defence Secretary Hegseth Over Iran War
The U.S. House is set to vote today on whether to advance articles of impeachment against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has called the effort “sabotage”.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie introduced the 34-page resolution on Monday. It has eight articles, centred on the war with Iran but also covering boat strikes in the Caribbean and the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Massie says Hegseth’s actions amount to “high crimes and misdemeanours.”
The outcome is uncertain. House Republican leaders say they will defeat the resolution, but absences among members who lost their elections could open the door for it to pass. Some Republicans are also unhappy with how the administration has handled the war after heavy GOP losses in last week’s midterms.
At his first Pentagon news conference in six months, Hegseth said the resolution targets “policy disagreements” and not impeachable offences. “This is not patriotism. This is sabotage.”
He said the effort tells Iran, the cartels and “every adversary watching” that the United States will punish its own troops and leaders for carrying out lawful operations. He also called it “a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment”.
The first article accuses Hegseth of carrying out illegal orders to start the Iran war without congressional authorisation, in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The second says he ignored a measure both chambers passed in June directing the administration to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. The third says he kept directing hostilities after the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day deadline passed. The fourth accuses him of dismantling protections against civilian casualties, which Massie alleges led to the strike on an Iranian elementary school in February. Iranian media reported that the strike killed about 170 civilians, most of them children. The U.S. has not directly accepted responsibility.
The administration has argued that hostilities with Iran ended. In a May 1 letter to Congress, it said they had “terminated”. Hegseth told senators that a ceasefire pauses the 60-day clock.
President Donald Trump backed Hegseth on Truth Social, giving him an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS, and pointed to the January raid that captured Maduro and to operations against Iran. Iran has kept striking U.S. bases in the Middle East and has disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the more than eight-month conflict.
No defence secretary has been impeached. The last Cabinet secretary to be impeached was Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose case the Senate dismissed in 2024.