Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a resolution Tuesday to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” reading eight articles on the House floor that accuse him of violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in the Iran conflict.
Massie entered the resolution as privileged, a maneuver that forces House leaders to take up the measure within two legislative days. He read the articles aloud for more than an hour before closing out his introduction.
The Kentucky Republican said in a news release that Hegseth had abused his office and needed to answer for it.
“Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable,” Massie said. “He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders, and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech.”
The first three articles argue that Hegseth’s department is “waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat,” and that he continued hostilities after the House and Senate directed the removal of troops. The fourth and fifth accuse him of refusing to minimize civilian casualties and of extrajudicial killing tied to lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
Massie’s seventh article accuses Hegseth of the “Kidnapping of a Sovereign Foreign Leader” for his role in the January operation that extracted former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from Caracas. The final article charges him with carrying out unlawful orders in Yemen.
The Pentagon defended the secretary.
“The entire Department is unified behind the Secretary’s vision and will continue working to put our warfighters and America first,” press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in a statement.
Republican leaders could move to table the measure, killing it, though they would need nearly all Republicans to stay unified. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche rejected the premise, telling reporters the Iran conflict is not a war.
The move comes months after Hegseth campaigned in Kentucky for Massie’s Trump-endorsed primary challenger, Ed Gallrein, as President Donald Trump urged Republicans to “vote the bum out.” Massie, a libertarian who broke with the party over Iran and the Epstein files, lost that May primary. House Democrats introduced their own six articles against Hegseth in April.
Hegseth and the Defense Department did not immediately respond to Massie’s floor announcement.
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