Republicans in the United States House of Representatives have blocked an effort to impeach Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, voting on Tuesday evening to send the impeachment resolution to the House Judiciary Committee and effectively killing the push for now. The vote was 211 in favour and 204 against, with Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the impeachment effort, the only Republican to vote against the procedural manoeuvre.
The vote came as Republicans grapple with the fallout from sweeping midterm losses that some in the party have blamed on the war in Iran and the resulting surge in gas prices. But after President Donald Trump signalled strong support for Hegseth, Republican lawmakers largely stood by the secretary on Tuesday, rejecting the impeachment effort led by Massie and backed by Democrats.
Massie's resolution included eight articles of impeachment, largely focused on the war in Iran but also covering Hegseth's role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela and strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. The articles accused the combative Pentagon chief of launching an illegal war against Iran without a formal declaration of war or congressional approval, and of abusing his powers as Pentagon chief.
Massie filed the resolution in the House on Monday, giving Republican leaders two days to bring it to a vote under the chamber's rules for privileged resolutions. Tuesday's vote was a procedural attempt to stop the impeachment push outright by sending the matter back to committee, and if the resolution had advanced, it would have set the stage for a dramatic vote on Wednesday on whether to impeach a key Trump Cabinet member.
Hegseth rebuked the effort on Tuesday in his first news conference in months, portraying Massie as a rogue lawmaker and arguing he had committed none of the high crimes required in the Constitution for his removal. He called the impeachment push a farce, and won praise from the president, who wrote on Truth Social after the vote that "the Democrats' attempt to impeach Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has miserably FAILED! Every single Republican, except Thomas Massie, a major LOSER, voted in favor of Pete."
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to become the next speaker when Democrats take charge in January, stood firmly behind the push, saying Hegseth has "abused his power" and "undermined America's national security". Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer endorsed Hegseth's impeachment as well. Democrats had voiced strong support for the effort, but 11 failed to show up to vote, and no other Republicans joined Massie.
The decision to send the resolution to committee halts the immediate impeachment drive, but it does not prevent Democrats from reviving the effort after taking control of Congress in January. The Judiciary Committee is controlled by Trump allies who decide when topics and votes are scheduled, so they are expected simply not to put the issue to the committee before the end of this two-year Congress on 3 January, when the articles of impeachment will formally expire and Democrats will need to produce a new version if they are to launch their own effort in the new year.
An impeachment conviction in the US Senate, where it would require a two-thirds vote and Republicans have a 53-seat majority, was in any case seen as unlikely. The vote may therefore only delay an impeachment push against Hegseth, with Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate in January and expected to revisit the question of the Pentagon chief's conduct in office and his handling of the war in Iran.
For now, the episode hands Mr Trump a victory days after his party's crushing midterm election defeat, and it leaves Hegseth in place at the Pentagon. But the underlying argument — over whether the war in Iran was lawful, and who bears responsibility for it — has not been settled, and it will return to Congress in January, when the political arithmetic is very different.
