War Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed back Tuesday against an impeachment effort targeting him, telling reporters at a Pentagon press conference that lawmakers were trying to turn policy disagreements into impeachable offenses.
“One disgruntled congressman wants to shred it over policy disagreements. That’s what it is: policy disagreements, not high crimes, not misdemeanors, not treason, not bribery, not the kinds of offenses the founders intended when they wrote the impeachment clause,” Hegseth said.
“The proper remedy for a policy disagreement, it’s legislation, it’s debate, it’s the next presidential election,” he added.
The House is expected to vote Tuesday evening on whether to advance a resolution containing eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, introduced Monday by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Massie, an outgoing Kentucky Republican who lost his primary earlier this year, argues the allegations go well beyond policy disputes.
“The question is whether he committed impeachable acts,” Massie wrote on X Monday. “And the answer is yes, eight times.”
What the articles allege
Three of the eight articles accuse Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution during the war against Iran — alleging he initiated hostilities without congressional authorization, continued operations after Congress directed their termination, and ignored statutory deadlines for withdrawing U.S. forces.
Other articles accuse Hegseth of failing to comply with laws meant to minimize civilian casualties, including in connection with a strike on an Iranian school, and of conducting unlawful maritime strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean. The resolution also alleges Hegseth retaliated against Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., over a video urging service members to refuse unlawful orders, and that he unlawfully directed military operations in Yemen and the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
A mixed legal verdict
Constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley said six of the eight articles, including those tied to Iran, should be “nonstarters.” He argued Massie was trying to use impeachment to settle a long-running dispute over presidential war powers that predates this administration, noting presidents from both parties — including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — have claimed broad authority to launch military operations without congressional approval.
“Massie is not going to ‘litigate’ the matter through impeachments,” Turley wrote on X.
He also dismissed the article tied to Maduro’s capture, citing precedent from the U.S. seizure of former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.
But Turley drew a sharper line around two allegations: the maritime strikes against suspected drug traffickers and Hegseth’s treatment of Sen. Kelly.
“The ‘double tap’ allegation would be a war crime, if true,” Turley wrote, while noting that Trump and Hegseth have denied issuing such orders.
He said the push to punish Kelly over his video also raises serious free-speech and command-influence questions, though he stopped short of saying either allegation meets the constitutional bar for impeachment. “I will be looking for the underlying evidence on those two articles,” he wrote.
White House and Cabinet rally behind Hegseth
Vice President JD Vance dismissed the effort outright. “Has Pete Hegseth committed impeachable crimes? The question is absurd and the answer is: obviously not,” he wrote on X. “Congress has so many tools for registering its policy disagreements. Rather than use them, they’re going to try to impeach Pete Hegseth.”
Vance argued the real motivation was Hegseth’s shake-up of the Pentagon, including shifting U.S. forces away from Europe and Ukraine and reorganizing military leadership. “This isn’t about Iran, this is about the fact that Pete took on the bureaucracy at the Pentagon,” he wrote.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said Hegseth had worked with Trump
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