Hegseth Impeachment: The House Holds Its First Vote Tonight on Massie's Eight Articles

WASHINGTON — The impeachment fight over Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth begins in the House on Tuesday evening, when representatives hold their first vote on the effort led by Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who filed eight articles of impeachment on Nov. 9, USA TODAY reported. The vote is a procedural one: House Republican leaders are set to move tonight to set Massie's resolution aside, which would essentially kill it. If that motion fails, the House would likely vote on the articles themselves on Nov. 11, with Massie requesting separate votes on each article.

The first four articles concern the Iran war. Three allege that Hegseth violated the Constitution by directing the military to sustain hostilities against Iran without congressional approval — Massie's resolution cites the War Powers Act, which requires the president to end combat operations after 60 days unless Congress authorizes them — and a fourth alleges he ignored laws meant to minimize civilian casualties, citing the Feb. 28 U.S. missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Iran, which killed at least 168 people, most of them children, and whose Pentagon investigation findings have not been released. 'We're not indicting him for being bad at his job,' Massie told reporters on Nov. 9. 'The argument here is that he's broken laws and he's violated the Constitution.'

The remaining articles accuse Hegseth of violating the law through 'extrajudicial killings' of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea — a campaign since September 2025 in which, USA TODAY reported, the U.S. military has killed more than 240 people — of risking service members' lives in the operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, of directing military action in Yemen without congressional approval, and, in a final article, of violating the First Amendment by censuring Sen. Mark Kelly and ordering a Pentagon investigation after Kelly joined a video telling troops they can refuse illegal orders. Kelly sued in January; a federal judge sided with him, and the Justice Department has appealed.

Hegseth answered at a press briefing on Nov. 10, calling the effort a 'farce' and 'a stunt and everybody knows it' — the revenge, he said, of a defeated congressman: Hegseth and President Donald Trump endorsed Rep.-elect Ed Gallrein, who beat Massie in the Republican primary. Not every Republican critic of Hegseth is with Massie, either: Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told reporters the resolution 'didn't address his main problems' with the defense secretary and said, 'I see a need to have gone into Iran.' Any article the House passes by simple majority would go to the Senate, where conviction and removal would take two-thirds — a bar USA TODAY notes has never been met for a Cabinet member: only two have ever been impeached by the House, and neither was convicted. The result of tonight's procedural vote files when it is verified.