Impeach Pete Hegseth Before More Damage Is Done

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPete Hegseth has violated federal law, he’s violated the laws of war, he’s violated the Constitution, and he should be impeached, convicted, removed from power and barred from serving in federal office ever again.Sadly, however, the first effort to impeach Hegseth has failed, at least for now. The lame duck Republican-controlled Congress voted 211-204 to essentially kill impeachment by referring the charges to a committee, where it will undoubtedly die — unless Democrats revive the effort in 2027.They should. Impeaching Hegseth isn’t a matter of retribution or vengeance. It’s about imposing accountability for an unconstitutional war. But even more is at stake — impeaching and convicting Hegseth would help restore the primacy of Congress in the American government.Last month I wrote that Hegseth should be impeached, and in response I received a number of messages asking a fair question, even from people who very much oppose the Trump administration and Hegseth’s actions as secretary of defense: Why Hegseth in particular? they asked. What are the high crimes and misdemeanors he’s guilty of that require his removal?Let me answer that question in detail.As a starting point, we’ll turn to the failed resolution filed by Thomas Massie, the eccentric outgoing Republican congressman from Kentucky. It contains eight separate charges against Hegseth.The first three are directly related to the decision to wage the Iran war, accusing Hegseth of attacking Iran without congressional authorization, continuing the war after Congress voted to terminate hostilities and still fighting the war after the 60-day expiration period defined by the War Powers Resolution, a 1973 act of Congress that was supposed to sharply limit the president’s ability to wage war unilaterally.Two charges are directly related to Hegseth’s conduct of hostilities, accusing him of ignoring laws that are designed to minimize civilian casualties and engaging in extrajudicial killings in his lethal campaign against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Pacific.Massie’s resolution also accuses Hegseth of violating the free speech rights of Senator Mark Kelly (a retired Navy pilot and former astronaut) by attempting to punish Kelly for making a video with several other Democratic lawmakers that said service members had a duty to defy unlawful orders.The final two charges accuse Hegseth of kidnapping Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores of Venezuela, and of waging war against the Houthis in Yemen without congressional authorization.I want to focus on what are, in my view, the three most important charges: the claims that Hegseth defied the War Powers Resolution in the decision to attack Iran and wage protracted war against Iran.But first, it’s important to state (or restate) that impeachment is a political remedy for misconduct in office. It is not a criminal trial. It does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that an executive branch official committed a felony to merit impeachment or conviction.High crimes and misdemeanors are whatever Congress says they are, but that does not mean that Congress should exercise unbounded authority and use impeachment as a means of targeting political enemies.If Congress is going to impeach and convict a member of the cabinet, it is prudent to do so for concrete, obvious violations of federal law or other forms of extreme misconduct. And there are few abuses of power more extreme than waging war in defiance of the Constitution and Congress.But first, a bit of background.The War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973 in response to Richard Nixon’s extraordinary use of power during the Vietnam War. Nixon, for example, notoriously conducted a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the war. The resolution was designed to strike a balance between Congress’s exclusive power to declare war and the president’s exclusive authority to command the armed forces.Presidents don’t have to wait for Congress to act to order troops into combat when they’re being attacked, or when an attack is imminent. American forces, for example, were already engaged in large-scale combat with Japanese forces before Congress declared war on Dec. 8, 1941. They had a right to respond to Japanese attacks.But the existence of an emergency should not permit the president to circumvent Congress for an indefinite or protracted period of time.The War Powers Resolution squares that circle. If a president initiates military action, he has 48 hours to inform the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate.That notification then triggers a 60-day clock. If Congress doesn’t authorize the military action, the president has to terminate unauthorized hostilities. If Congress passes a concurrent resolution in both houses, the president still has to terminate hostilities.As of today, the president hasn’t sought a declaration of war, the 60-day clock has expired and both houses of Congress have passed Concurrent Resolution 86, requiring the president to terminate the war. In other words, the Trump administration is in open defiance of the War Powers Resolution.Presidents of both parties have long argued that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional. They’ve claimed it encroaches on the president’s inherent authority to command the armed forces. But — and I cannot emphasize this enough — that is not the president’s call to make.The Supreme Court has not explicitly ruled on the constitutionality of the resolution, and it probably will not. For generations it has avoided deciding inter-branch disputes regarding the use of the armed forces. That means it is up to Congress to assert its authority. It cannot rely on voluntary presidential compliance. It cannot rely on Supreme Court intervention.If Congress wants to enforce its authority, it has two primary levers: funding and impeachment. And between those two, impeachment is the far better remedy. It is better to relieve a lawless secretary of defense from office than it is to defund the troops under his command.In fact, I’d argue that if Congress wants to reclaim its constitutional role as the sole entity that can declare war, it is a constitutional necessity to impeach and convict senior members of the Trump administration (if not Trump himself) for waging war with Iran.Reserving the power to declare war to Congress was no minor matter. As Abraham Lincoln wrote all the way back in 1848: “Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.”In addition, as I’ve written before, it is simply wrong to say that the Constitution creates three coequal branches of government. In our representative democracy, the most representative branch of government — Congress — is supposed to reign supreme.Yes, other branches can certainly check it. (No branch of government has unchecked power.) Presidents can veto legislation. Courts exercise the power of judicial review of congressional statutes. But Congress alone possesses the power of the purse. Congress alone possesses the power to declare war. And Congress alone can impeach and remove presidents, cabinet officials and federal judges.One of the central problems of our democracy is that generations of congressional abdication of power to the executive branch have turned the structure upside down. It is presidents have reigned supreme. It’s destabilizing our country. Presidents were never intended to be kings — far from it.I can think of few better ways for Congress to reassert its place in American government than by removing a secretary of defense who shares responsibility for the most outrageous act of constitutional defiance in warmaking in modern American history.Against these charges Hegseth can offer two primary defenses. First, that the administration did nothing wrong or unusual. And second, that he was simply following orders. In other words, Congress, you’re going after the wrong guy.The first defense relies on the argument that the Trump administration was merely following modern precedents set by other presidents. President Barack Obama, for example, did not receive congressional approval before launching airstrikes against Libya in 2011. Nor did he receive specific congressional approval for his anti-ISIS military operations in 2014.I also think that Obama should have sought congressional approval before ordering both military actions, but there are very substantial legal differences between the Trump administration’s war against Iran and Obama’s campaigns against Libya and ISIS.In Libya, NATO forces operated under the authority of a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force. The U.N. Charter is a senate-ratified treaty (in much the same way that the North Atlantic Treaty, which created NATO, is Senate-ratified) that empowers the use of military force. In addition, Congress never used its authority under the War Powers Resolution to attempt to terminate hostilities in Libya.The ISIS mission was conducted under the auspices of two congressional authorizations for the use of force, the 2001 authorization for use of military force against Al Qaeda (in 2004, the precursor to ISIS — Al Qaeda in Iraq — essentially merged with Al Qaeda) and the 2002 authorization for use of force in Iraq, which allowed U.S. forces to “defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”In reality, presidents have repeatedly sought congressional approval for prolonged military action, and no modern president before Donald Trump has faced — much less defied — a concurrent resolution requiring an end to a war.President George H.W. Bush notified Congress in accordance with the War Powers Resolution when he ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989 and ended combat operations before the expiration of the 60-day clock.In fact, in February 1990, the House passed a resolution declaring that Bush had “acted decisively and appropriately in ordering United States forces to intervene in Panama.”Bush also obtained congressional approval and a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing Operation Desert Storm.President George W. Bush received congressional approval for both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. His decision to obtain congressional approval for the invasion of Iraq was particularly notable. His own Department of Justice told him it was unnecessary, but he disagreed and went to Congress anyway.What about Hegseth’s claim that he was merely following orders? In a combative news conference on Tuesday, Hegseth said that every operation in Iran, South America, the Caribbean and Yemen was a “lawful operation ordered by the commander in chief, then ordered by myself.”It is true that Trump bears primary responsibility for the military operations executed under his command. He deserves impeachment and conviction as well. But Trump does not bear exclusive responsibility.To make this point, I’m going to turn to the Nuremberg trials. But I want to be very clear: I do not believe that Hegseth’s violations of the law are in any way comparable in scope or savagery to the conduct of Nazis in World War II. I am comparing legal principles, not atrocities.The Nuremberg trials established a legal principle that’s applicable beyond Hitler’s Germany: Powerful subordinates can and should be held accountable for waging war without legal justification. They share responsibility with the leader of the nation for the actions undertaken in its name.In Count 1, the Nuremberg prosecutors prosecuted multiple senior Nazi leaders who “participated as leaders, organizers, instigators or accomplices” in the “formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit, or which involved the commission of, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”Count 2 charged defendants with participating in the “planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances.”As I said, impeachment isn’t a criminal proceeding, and thankfully, the charges against Hegseth are nowhere near as grave as the charges against the Nazi defendants. But did Hegseth conspire or have a common plan to wage war against Iran without congressional approval and in defiance of the acts of Congress and congressional resolutions? Did he plan, prepare, initiate and wage war in violation of the Constitution, acts of Congress and congressional resolutions?And consider this: Hegseth had an option unavailable to senior Nazi leaders. He could resign at any time and publicly dissent from the administration’s course of action, without fear for his life.In addition, American law has long imposed on subordinates an affirmative obligation to refuse to obey clearly unlawful orders.My focus on the War Powers Resolution should not be taken in any way as a judgment that Hegseth is innocent of the other charges against him. I agree with Andrew McCarthy, my former National Review colleague, who wrote, “I do not believe there is any viable justification for the extrajudicial killings by military force of operators of suspected drug boats.”If any evidence emerges during impeachment proceedings that Hegseth ordered attacks on sailors who were clinging to the destroyed wreckage of their boat — as The Washington Post reported in 2025 — that’s so clearly illegal that the Department of Defense Law of War Manual uses it as a textbook example of a war crime.Hegseth’s attempt to punish Senator Kelly for publicly stating that service members have a duty to disobey illegal orders was also laughably unconstitutional. It was a clear abuse of power for which he is individually responsible. If he were impeached on that basis alone, it would be well deserved.The impeachment charges provide an opportunity for the House and the Senate to think bigger — to recover their power (and, quite frankly, for some of them, their dignity) by at least holding the secretary of defense accountable for his own role in waging an unconstitutional war. The president, of course, is primarily responsible — and one day he should face a reckoning for his constitutional crimes — but he is not solely responsible.Hegseth shares the blame, and no amount of finger-pointing and excuse-making can change the fact that he played his own role in arrogantly leading our nation into an unconstitutional war. Congress must relieve him of his command.Some other things I didMy Sunday column was about the midterms and the extraordinary swing to the left by young men. If Republicans are supposed to be the party of strength and masculinity, why did young men turn on them so decisively?Collectively, the new right created a masculine culture that felt almost like a parody of a far-left toxic masculinity fever dream. It was a culture that celebrated raw physical aggression, sexual dominance and exploitation and the naked pursuit of wealth and power.When anyone raised an objection, he or she was immediately mocked, bullied and lectured. Trump, the manosphere and groups like Turning Point were reaching Gen Z, we were told. Get out of the way, boomers, they said; they’re building a youth movement.Indeed they did — but on the left. Even before the backlash showed up in the polls, I could see it on the ground. A vast majority of young men looked at the masculinity of the new right and reacted with revulsion and horror.I teach at a Christian college, and I speak at colleges across the country. Despite the crowds at T.P.U.S.A. events, there was no groundswell of support for bullying, for conspiracy theories or for the kind of peacocking that was on display from men like Pete Hegseth.It’s as if an entire political movement had watched a movie like “Back to the Future” and decided that Biff Tannen was the hero. Or they watched a holiday classic like “A Christmas Story” and cheered for Scut Farkus, the kid who terrorized Ralphie on his way to school.Last Thursday night, Jamelle Bouie, Michelle Cottle and I had a round-table discussion in front of a lively audience at the Brooklyn Public Library. We talked about the midterms, of course, and I shared my thoughts on why a bluer South was good for America:David French: I was a Republican until Donald Trump. I am still a conservative. I want to see a conservative renaissance. But I think, as an American, it is better for all of us when the South is up for grabs. I think that’s just an unquestionably true statement. When people have to fight to win races, it is better. Because when you have a situation where there’s just total nonstop one-party rule, it fosters an enormous amount of corruption, it fosters an enormous amount of extremism ——Michelle Cottle: And weak candidates. It’s just like weak politicians who aren’t that talented.French: And weak candidates. I mean, and that’s one thing that we found: All of a sudden, when these senators had to step up, they couldn’t do it.Related ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT