US House blocks effort to impeach Hegseth

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 211-204 to send a resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to committee, effectively killing the effort.

Republicans backed the motion 210-1 and were joined by the chamber’s lone independent, while all 203 Democrats who voted opposed it. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who authored the resolution, was the only Republican to vote against it.

Massie’s resolution, introduced Monday, contained eight articles of impeachment. They accuse Hegseth of waging war with Iran without congressional authorization, carrying out extrajudicial killings in airstrikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea, illegally seizing then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, targeting Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and carrying out an unlawful war in Yemen.

Hegseth dismissed the effort at a Pentagon news conference earlier Tuesday.

“It’s a farce, and it’s a stunt and everybody knows it,” he said. “These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it’s the job well done.”