Will Pete Hegseth be impeached?

A Republican congressman on Monday introduced a motion to impeach US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth for "high crimes and misdemeanours" while in office, including his waging war against Iran without congressional approval.

Representative Thomas Massie, a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump and his administration, launched the impeachment push as the House of Representatives returned after last week's midterm elections, when Republicans suffered historic losses that have been largely blamed on the unpopularity of the Iran war.

Mr Massie is accusing Mr Hegseth of waging the war without congressional authorisation, as well as committing extrajudicial killings through strikes on alleged drug boats, ignoring laws designed to minimise civilian casualties including with a strike on an Iranian school in Minab, and unlawfully kidnapping a foreign leader – Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

Mr Massie listed eight articles of impeachment, the first of which relates to the Iran war and the decision by the Trump administration not to seek congressional approval before it began on February 28.

Under US law, presidents have considerable latitude to order limited military strikes without seeking congressional approval, relying on their constitutional authority as commander-in-chief.

But Mr Massie claims the Iran campaign was unlawful under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which sets out the circumstances under which a president can introduce US forces into hostilities.

Show caption: US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth. AFP

Mr Massie wrote in the impeachment resolution that Mr Hegseth "executed and implemented unlawful orders to initiate war against a foreign nation".

Successive presidents have disputed the need to seek Congress's approval before launching military action.

Mr Hegseth has mounted a social media campaign, saying in a defiant video message last week that he would not back down. He also drew a comparison to Mr Trump, who was impeached twice, saying, "It didn't work against President Trump, and it won't work with me."

Mr Trump on Monday said there was "something wrong" with Mr Massie, who he described as a "stone-cold loser".

"He shouldn't be taking up the time of Congress or the Senate or anything that he's doing," Mr Trump told reporters at the White House.

"He's a sick, sick guy. There's something wrong with him, actually. Now he's he's after Pete Hegseth. He doesn't like Hegseth, but really, what has Hegseth done? He won the war."

Asked if he had enough Republican support to defeat the impeachment push, Mr Hegseth said on Monday: "We're not worried about that." He announced that he would hold a media conference on Tuesday, his first at the Pentagon since May.

Mr Massie is leaving Congress when his term expires at the end of the year after losing a primary challenge in May. Mr Trump had sought a different Republican candidate after Mr Massie repeatedly criticised him over the Epstein files, his support for Israel and the Iran war.

Minab school strike

In the articles of impeachment, Mr Hegseth is accused of causing a "systematic deterioration" in checks designed to reduce collateral damage and the risk of civilian casualties.

He "directed the Department of Defence in a manner that resulted in the death or injury of more than 200 civilians at the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab", the articles of impeachment state.

Mr Hegseth also cultivated a war-making culture at the Department of Defence, which he boasts as being dismissive of “stupid rules of engagement” with a preference for “maximum lethality, not tepid legality".

The Pentagon has not formally taken responsibility for the Minab strike, and its official position remains that an investigation is continuing, although a UN fact-finding mission has concluded that the US may have committed a war crime in the attack, which took place in the opening hours of the conflict that Mr Trump launched alongside Israel.

Show caption: Mourners dig graves during the funeral for children killed i…

"There's no fog of war on the first day. You've had months to identify these targets and pick them," Mr Massie told reporters at the US Capitol. "Yet they picked a school building on a school day with school kids in it, and then struck it again, and then struck it again.

"That is the foreseeable and obvious and unfortunate consequence of something Pete Hegseth did himself at the Department of Defence."

Mr Hegseth has been the Trump administration’s most vocal defender for the unpopular conflict in Iran, which surged energy prices, fuelled global inflation and eventually helped to doom the Republicans at the midterms.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called Mr Massie’s effort a “cheap trick", adding that “it would be a terrible thing for our allies and enemies to see that".

The motion, which comes before the Democrats take over the House and Senate in January, may pass the House but is unlikely to make it through the still Republican-controlled Senate.

Last week, Mr Hegseth posted a six-minute video on X defending his tenure, calling Mr Massie a “disgruntled, defeated congressman” who has filed “sham articles of impeachment against yours truly".

Mr Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by controversies, most notably the Iran war and the legally questionable strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

He has also been criticised for pushing out high-ranking officers, verbal attacks on “woke” diversity initiatives and transgender troops, and the depletion of interceptor missiles as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

"We are no longer the woke department or the weak department. Simple translation of that – no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors," Mr Hegseth said in September.