(AFP) – Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday blocked an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the Iran war, handing President Donald Trump a victory days after his party’s crushing midterm election defeat. The House voted 211 to 204 to send the impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, effectively derailing a planned vote Wednesday on whether to bring formal charges against the embattled Pentagon chief.
The resolution was introduced by Republican Thomas Massie, a Trump critic who was the only member of his party to oppose the procedural maneuver, according to US media. The impeachment drive had threatened to deepen Trump’s troubles after Democrats swept last week’s midterms, with anger at the sputtering Iran war and soaring fuel prices helping drive voters to a historic rejection of Republicans. Republicans still hold a narrow House majority until January, when Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress. And 11 Democrats missed the vote.
Trump hailed the procedural defeat as an “EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot,” in a post on Truth Social, while Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, in a post on X, called the vote a “TOTAL VICTORY!” “We look forward to ending this sham impeachment in the committee room, where facts will continue to prevail and this distraction can be put to rest,” Parnell added.
Hegseth earlier Tuesday dismissed the impeachment effort as a “farce” and defended his record leading the Iran war and other military operations under Trump. “It’s a farce, and it’s a stunt, and everybody knows it,” he said at a Pentagon press conference, branding the accusations “slander” and “sabotage.” Moments after Hegseth’s televised appearance, Trump signaled his support. “Pete Hegseth gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS,” the 80-year-old president wrote on his Truth Social platform. Vice President JD Vance also backed the defense secretary, saying he had “obviously not” committed impeachable offenses.
Massie’s eight articles of impeachment accused Hegseth of illegally waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers as Pentagon chief. Several related to the eight-month Iran war, accusing him of violating the War Powers Resolution, which places limits on US military interventions without congressional authorization. Other allegations involved the 2025 conflict with Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which Massie branded “extrajudicial killings.” He also accused Hegseth of suppressing free speech by trying to punish Democratic Senator Mark Kelly over a video urging military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders.
Hegseth defended the operations in Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, and against alleged drug smugglers, while seeking to equate the impeachment effort with an attack on US troops. “I stand behind every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow,” he said. The decision to send the resolution to committee halts the immediate impeachment drive but does not prevent Democrats from reviving the effort after taking control of Congress in January. Massie, who lost his Republican primary to a Trump-backed challenger, will leave Congress at the end of his term.
– W.G. DUNLOP and Frankie TAGGART
© 2024 AFP
