Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, walked onto the House floor on Monday and reintroduced eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, accusing him of illegally waging war against Iran without the approval of Congress — and forcing the House to decide, within days, whether to put the Pentagon chief on trial.
The resolution was filed on the House’s first day back in session after the midterm elections, and because Massie introduced it as a privileged measure, House leaders have two legislative days to bring it to a vote, send it to committee, or try to table it. A vote could come as early as Wednesday.
Massie first filed the articles in September, but the House went home early before a vote could be held. He reintroduced them on Monday to restart the clock — and told reporters he believes the measure stands a better chance now than it did before the election.
“By engaging in hostilities in Iran for more than 90 days without congressional authorization, Secretary Hegseth is breaking the law and must be held accountable,” Massie said in a statement from his office.
What the eight articles allege
The 34-page resolution accuses Hegseth of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and is built around three alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the post-Vietnam law that limits how long American forces can fight overseas without Congress signing off.
The first article charges Hegseth with starting the war with Iran on February 28 without a declaration of war, specific authorization from Congress, or an attack on the United States. The second says he kept the war going after both chambers of Congress passed a resolution directing American forces to be removed. The third says he blew past the law’s 60-day limit on unauthorized hostilities, plus its 30-day window to withdraw.
The remaining articles reach beyond Iran. One accuses Hegseth of ignoring laws meant to minimize civilian casualties, pointing to a Tomahawk missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, Iran. The articles say the strike killed at least 156 civilians, including at least 120 schoolchildren. Another article covers the lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean suspected of carrying drugs, which Massie’s office says have killed at least 243 people — including follow-up strikes on survivors and failures to rescue people left in the water.
The resolution also accuses Hegseth of retaliating against Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, whose military pension was cut after he urged troops to disobey unlawful orders, and of launching an unauthorized military operation in Yemen without an imminent threat to the United States. The operation that captured Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro is described in the articles as “an act of war against a sovereign country executed under the guise of narcotics law enforcement.”
“Hegseth, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office,” Massie said on the House floor, where he spoke for more than an hour laying out the case.
What happens next
Impeachment requires only a simple majority in the House, but removing Hegseth from office would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate — a bar that makes his removal unlikely even if the House votes to impeach. If the House does impeach him, Hegseth would be only the third Cabinet official in American history to be impeached.
Republicans currently hold a five-seat majority in the House, so a handful of Republican votes would be enough to send the articles forward. Some Republican lawmakers believe the measure could pass, and Massie argues the politics have shifted: the war, and the rise in gasoline prices that came with it, were blamed by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance for the party’s heavy losses in the midterm elections.
Trump, for his part, has stood by his defense secretary. Asked about the impeachment effort at a White House press conference on Monday, he called Massie a “stone cold loser.” Speaker Mike Johnson could still try to steer the resolution to a committee or move to table it before a floor vote.
At least one Democrat has already lined up behind the effort. Representative Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, the state’s only Democrat in the House, reaffirmed his support for impeaching Hegseth on Monday. He first called for the defense secretary’s removal in December 2025.
Hegseth has vowed to fight the effort and, through a spokesman, has said he intends to serve through the end of Trump’s term. He is due to hold a news conference on Tuesday morning — his first in more than 180 days — to respond to the articles. The Pentagon has not released the findings of its investigation into the school strike in Minab.
The full text of the articles is published on Massie’s official House website: the full 34-page resolution.
