House nears test vote on impeachment of Pete Hegseth

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to continue efforts to impeach the defense secretary. Pete Hegsethwho accused lawmakers of undermining U.S. troops in war zones by targeting him for simple “political disagreements.”

The procedural vote will block the impeachment resolution or hold a final vote on Wednesday. With Democratic leaders backing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s efforts, the outcome will likely hinge on whether Republican lawmakers break ranks after their massive defeats in the midterm elections.

Hegseth On Tuesday, he engaged in a brawl in Congress in his first news conference in months, portraying Massie as a rogue lawmaker and arguing that he had committed none of the serious crimes constitutionally required for his impeachment. He framed the effort as an indictment of the country’s military and its successes while undermining U.S. forces “in real time.”

“It’s not patriotism,” Hegseth said. “This is sabotage.”

Massie’s resolution includes eight counts of impeachment. It focuses largely on war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in leading military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican who left Congress in January after losing his primary to a Trump-backed opponent, claims Hegseth “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders.”

Hegseth holds rare press conference

On Tuesday morning, Hegseth gave a defiant and politicized defense of his leadership of the U.S. military in his first Pentagon news conference in six months. He chose to respond to growing bipartisan anger over battlefield strategy while offering few details on battlefield strategy. intermittent operations against Iran or deadly strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats in Latin America.

President Donald Trump praised Hegseth’s performance at the briefing in a social media post, while Vice President JD Vance said in his own post that the impeachment effort is “a ridiculous spectacle that replaces actual policymaking.”

Hegseth said the impeachment resolution “tells our enemies — Iran, the cartels, every adversary watching — that the United States will in fact punish its own warriors and its own civilian leaders for successfully executing lawful military operations.”

An impeachment vote looms in the House

Massie introduced the resolution in the House on Monday, giving Republican leaders two days to bring it to a vote. Tuesday’s vote is a procedural attempt to stop the impeachment drive altogether by sending the matter back to committee.

If the impeachment resolution moves forward, it would set the stage for a dramatic vote Wednesday on whether to remove a key member of Trump’s Cabinet after considerable losses for the Republicans in last week’s midterm elections, which many blamed, at least in part, on the Iranian conflict and its aftermath. economic impact. If the resolution were to pass the House, it would ultimately be sent to the Senate, where a two-thirds vote would be needed for Hegseth’s impeachment.

“The law requires our military to withdraw from hostilities within 60 days if Congress does not authorize the activity,” Massie wrote on social media Tuesday. The war in Iran “has been underway for 256 days. Congress did not authorize it. Hegseth is breaking the law.”

What constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” is not specified in the Constitution, leaving it up to lawmakers to decide what acts can be impeached.

Hegseth said Massie’s concerns are not unrelenting, calling them “policy disagreements, not high crimes, not misdemeanors, not treason, not bribery, not the kind of offenses the founders wanted when they wrote the impeachment clause.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson called it an “attention-grabbing political strategy” and predicted that Republicans would defeat him “one way or another.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is set to become the nation’s first Black House speaker, said Monday he was a “resounding yes” to the resolution. He called Hegseth the “architect” of the Iran war.

In the Senate, meanwhile, next steps were uncertain if the impeachment resolution was approved by the House.

Outgoing Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said Tuesday she wants to make sure “the right information flows from the Pentagon to the president.”

“Is he honest about how the war is going?” Ernst said of Hegseth.

This is not the first impeachment attempt in recent years

Hegseth framed Massie’s resolution in historic terms, saying no secretary of defense has been impeached in the nation’s 250-year history “for conducting lawful military operations.”

But more recently, an official in President Joe Biden’s office, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, was indicted by House Republicans for his management of the US-Mexican border. But the Senate dismissed all impeachment chargesending his trial before the proceedings even began.

Mayorkas, who did not appear to testify before the impeachment proceedings, blamed the border crisis on Congress failing to update immigration laws at a time of global migration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then declared, in April 2024, that the accusations brought by House Republicans did not meet “the high standards of serious crimes and misdemeanors” and could create a dangerous precedent.

Republican Rep. Nick LaLota, who voted to impeach Mayorkas, said he did not believe Hegseth committed an impeachable offense.

“Impeachment has been watered down,” LaLota said.

Before Mayorkas, no sitting cabinet secretary had ever been impeached. Nearly 150 years ago, the House voted to impeach President Ulysses S. Grant’s Secretary of War, William Belknap, over bribery in government contracts. He resigned before the vote.

Trump offers support to Hegseth

Trump supported Hegseth following Massie’s impeachment resolution, pointing to the U.S. military raid aimed at capturing the then-Venezuelan president. Nicolas Maduro in January as well as operations against Iran which, he said, “wiped out” its navy and air force.

“Pete Hegseth gets an “A” PLUS, MORE, MORE for his defense against a disgruntled, angry and defeated former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.

Iran, however, was able continue to strike US military bases in the Middle East and disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz during the more than eight-month conflict, sending global oil prices soaring.

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Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.