A week after a disastrous midterm election, Donald Trump’s administration is facing its first major test of the president’s lame duck period. On the chopping block is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is facing impeachment by the House of Representatives for a laundry-list of alleged crimes stemming from the aggressive and deadly foreign policy pursued by his president.
Hegseth stands accused of violating the War Powers Act, evading laws set to prevent civilian casualties, abducting a foreign leader, suppressing free speech, and conducting extrajudicial killings. The sharks, in other words, are circling the Trump administration, and there’s plenty of blood in the water.
The crisis began as blowback for Trump’s own actions. Almost immediately after the midterms, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded Republican who lost his primary this year after Trump endorsed his opponent, declared that he would bring impeachment articles against Hegseth and force a vote as soon as possible. He followed through promptly, filing eight articles of impeachment on Monday.
Hegseth held his first press conference in six months the following morning.
“This is not about me,” Hegseth said, claiming that politicians were trying to blame enlisted military members for war crimes allegedly committed during the spate of extrajudicial killings Hegseth ordered off the coast of Latin America. “If they want to come for the warriors, they’re going to have to come through me.”
Massie’s articles of impeachment are comprehensive. Several allege that Hegseth violated the War Powers Agreement of 1973 by bypassing Congress in order to wage war on Iran, and several more accuse him of failing to minimize civilian casualties in that conflict and conducting the aforementioned killings when he ordered drone strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats — many of which were simple fishermen — in international waters. Other articles include accusations of “suppressing free speech” for Hegseth’s retaliation against Senator Mark Kelly after the latter urged U.S. servicemembers to disobey illegal orders. Another alleges that the Hegseth-led abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro was illegal.
“As for the articles themselves,” Hegseth said. “Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen — every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief then ordered by myself. These are not high crimes. This is the job.”
NBC News reports that Congress could hold a vote on impeaching Hegseth as early as 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. It’s clear that both the administration and Congress see this as a pivotal fight to define Trump’s lame duck period. Following Hegseth’s press conference, several figures in the administration jumped in to reinforce the combative Secretary of Defense.
“Has Pete Hegseth committed impeachable crimes? The question is absurd and the answer is: obviously not,” Vice President JD Vance posted on Tuesday. “This isn’t about Iran, this is about the fact that Pete took on the bureaucracy at the Pentagon.”
Some of that defiance also extended to the press in the room with Hegseth, who were warned that they would be ejected if they did not “maintain decorum.” At the Pentagon, Hegseth has waged an unending war against leaks, which led to the adoption of several unprecedented restrictions on reporting in the building itself and among the armed forces generally.
But the press may not be Hegseth’s biggest threat in this situation. Already, cracks are beginning to show in the Republican coalition, which seems to have realized that it must have someone to blame for the disastrous effects of the Iran war.
“If there is deception coming from our Pentagon and being transmitted to the president, I would want to know that,” Republican Senator Joni Ernst told reporters on Tuesday. “Now, will that be part of this impeachment? I don’t know. But I have some serious questions.”
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy also said he would be open to holding a Senate trial for Hegseth, if he is impeached by the House.
The deciding factor in all this, as it so often is, may be Donald Trump’s favor. On Monday evening, Trump was defiant during a press briefing at the White House, saying that he would stand by Hegseth.
“Pete Hegseth gets an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” Trump posted on TruthSocial after the press conference.
Hegseth’s note that everything he did was “ordered by the commander-in-chief” is also an explicit plea to the president: If I go down, you’re coming with me. Right now, that defense is holding, but the incoming Congress next year will be even less friendly to Trump and all his lackeys than the current one is. Hegseth better dig his foxhole deep. He’s in for a long war.
