WASHINGTON – Republicans in the US House of Representatives blocked an effort recently to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, winning a reprieve for the polarizing Pentagon chief before Democrats take control of Congress next year and possibly try again.
The vote on a procedural motion came just hours after Hegseth blasted efforts to impeach him as a farce and delivered a defiant defense of his record at the helm of the US military, winning praise from President Donald Trump.
The chamber voted 211 to 204 in favour of a motion to refer eight articles of impeachment, to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, a move that the sponsor of the impeachment push, US Representative Thomas Massie, warned would kill it.
Massie, an outgoing Kentucky Republican, had hoped to draw votes from Republicans upset with Hegseth’s policies and wary of the unpopularity of the eight-month-old Iran war but no other Republicans joined him. The US-Israeli led conflict has never been approved by Congress, which is the only branch of government constitutionally permitted to declare war.
Democrats had voiced strong support for the impeachment articles, which accuse Hegseth of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” of illegally ordering the military to wage war in Iran and Yemen, attack boats in the Caribbean Sea and capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January. But 11 Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, did not vote.
If eight of them had, the procedural measure would have been defeated, paving the way for a full House impeachment vote.
Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said she had missed the vote because she had returned to San Francisco for an annual event to honor veterans, but would have voted against the procedural measure.
Trump cheered the results in a social media post, saying the effort to impeach Hegseth “has miserably FAILED!” He wrote that Hegseth’s performance on Iran, Venezuela and other issues “led to the EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot.”
Hegseth would have been the first US defense secretary to be impeached. The last time any civilian leader of the US military was impeached was in 1876, when William Belknap held the title “secretary of war.”
Hegseth calls himself secretary of war, part of his effort to rebrand a military he said was too weak and “woke” when he took office last year. Trump cannot change the name of the Defense Department without approval from Congress. (Reuters)
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