Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ)
As a historic “blue wave” swept the Democrats to victory in last week’s US midterms, the likely incoming House oversight committee chair, Democratic lawmaker Robert Garcia, had a simple message for US President Donald Trump and his allies: “Lawyer up”.
But before the new Democrat-controlled Congress has even been sworn in, it’s a member of Trump’s own party who has caused the latest headache for his administration.
On Monday, outgoing Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican, took to the House floor to formally introduce a 34-page impeachment resolution against Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense.
Albeit an extraordinary rebuke, the move was unlikely to succeed, with Republicans still in power until January.
And indeed, on Tuesday, the Republican-led House voted 211-204 to refer it to committee, effectively killing off the measure for the remainder of this Congress. Hegseth has survived this attempt to oust him.
Any reprieve, however, may be short-lived. With the Democrats preparing to take control of Congress, how does impeachment of a cabinet official work? And could Hegseth still become the first US defence secretary in history to be removed from office?
What is impeachment?
Nearly 240 years ago, the framers of the US Constitution, fearful of tyranny, wanted a legislative process that could check abuses of executive power and remove a president or official who committed them.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution reads:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
The Constitution vests the House with “the sole Power of Impeachment”, which takes only a simple majority.
But impeachment only represents the formal process of laying charges. Removal from office is a much taller order, and requires a conviction through a trial in the Senate, with a two-thirds supermajority.
In other words, 67 of the 100 senators must vote to convict for the individual to be removed.
Not an ordinary courtroom
Unlike standard criminal or civil court proceedings with strict burdens of proof, the grounds for impeachment remain vague.
US Founding Father Alexander Hamilton characterised impeachable offences as those stemming from “the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust”.
Ultimately, as one academic put it:
Impeachment is a political process, albeit with legal overtones.
And while it’s been back in the spotlight in the Trump era, impeachment is still exceptionally rare — especially for cabinet officials. Only two US cabinet secretaries have ever been impeached, and neither was ultimately convicted and removed from office.
In 2024, during the Biden administration, US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by House Republicans over enforcement of immigration policy.
Then-President Joe Biden denounced the vote, which fell on party lines, as “baseless”.
The only other case occurred back in the Gilded Age. In 1876, the House voted unanimously to impeach US Secretary of War William Belknap over corruption allegations, despite the fact that Belknap had resigned from office just a few hours before.
What were the allegations against Hegseth?
Massie’s resolution contained eight articles of impeachment, which claimed Hegseth has abused his powers through unlawful acts – “especially with regard to the commission of war”.
Most articles accuse Hegseth of waging war without congressional approval. Among the most notable examples, it cites the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro back in January, and the launch of military action against Iran less than two months later.
Massie is a long-term and outspoken libertarian critic of Trump.
After being toppled by a Trump-endorsed primary challenger earlier this year, he will no longer represent Kentucky’s fourth congressional district in the incoming Congress.
With little to lose, and in the final months of a Republican-controlled Congress, Massie said he was “doing this because it’s the right thing to do”.
The political price of war
But the timing also reflects the political fallout from the Iran war, which many Republicans have blamed for their devastating rout at the midterms.
In recent months, survey after survey has found the vast majority of Americans disapprove of the government’s handling of the conflict and are concerned about higher gas and fuel prices.
A YouGov poll conducted on the eve of the midterm elections found a candidate’s support for the Iran war was more than three times as likely to put voters off as win them over.
It wouldn’t be the first time an unpopular war has cost a Pentagon official their job. In 2006, President George W Bush announced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation the day after Democrats won back Congress in a bruising midterm defeat for the Republicans.
This had been largely driven by public discontent with the Iraq war.
Against this backdrop, Massie was likely betting that the midterm result has given Republican lawmakers – including some 70 House representatives who will be vacating their seats in January – a renewed willingness to flex their legislative muscles in the twilight of this Congress.
Controlling the fall
Massie has argued that Hegseth’s removal from office could provide Republicans the opportunity to confirm a replacement before the Democratic Party takes over both chambers. This, he has said, would be:
a much gentler version of what’s coming when the Democrats assume control of the House and Senate next year.
Chances are, he’s right. Expected incoming Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries has previously signalled that targeting the high-profile cabinet official would be top of the party’s to-do list in a Democratic-controlled Congress:
One of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Jeffries declared himself a “hard yes” on Massie’s resolution and anticipated it would enjoy “incredibly strong support” from his party colleagues.
Why conviction remains unlikely
Democrats could be primed to mount their own similar case against Hegseth when they take control of the chamber in January.
However, even if next year an impeachment resolution can sail through the new Democratic-majority House, it is still unlikely to clear the high two-thirds bar in the Senate required for conviction. For his part, Trump has vowed to “stand by” Hegseth.
But Hegseth may still end up leaving office, one way or another. As one researcher predicted before the midterms, any impeachments of cabinet officers that proceed to trial with even modest Republican support could force those officials to resign.
Whatever happens, this ordeal is a first taste of what’s to come for the Trump administration over the next two years. And the Democrats barely had to lift a finger.
Ava Kalinauskas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/11/11/hegseth-has-survived-an-attempt-to-oust-him-for-now-a-much-bigger-fight-looms/