U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, US, November 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

There is a major shift happening in Capitol Hill following the U.S. midterm elections, as Representative Thomas Massie supported by lawmakers, including Representative Ro Khanna, introduced eight Articles of impeachment against U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.

The Articles cite violations of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, alongside misconduct involving civilian casualties and operations in Yemen and Venezuela.

Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News weekend host and one of President Donald Trump’s handpicked appointees in his second term as U.S. President, took charge of the Department of War despite lacking administrative experience commensurate with the post. Despite controversies surrounding his tenure, Mr. Trump has maintained his support and repeatedly dismissed suggestions of dismissing him.

Here is the complete breakdown of the eight Articles of impeachment introduced in the formal House resolution.

Article I: Waging War in Contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 Section 2(c)

Article 1 charges Mr. Hegseth with executing unlawful military orders by launching hostilities against Iran on February 28, 2026.

The resolution states that the military strikes violated Section 2(c) of the 1973 War Powers Resolution because Congress had not declared war, provided statutory authorisation or faced any national emergency caused by an attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the U.S.

Article II: Waging War in Contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 Section 5(c)

Article II focuses on Mr. Hegseth’s refusal to comply with Congress’s directive to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran. After both the House and Senate passed House Concurrent Resolution 86 (the first successful passage of such a legislative vehicle by both chambers of Congress in the history of the United States of America) to end unauthorised hostilities in June 2026, Mr. Hegseth allegedly directed the Department of Defence to ignore the resolution and continue with military strikes.

Article III: Waging War in Contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 Section 5(b)

As per Section 5 (b) of the War Powers Resolution, authorised military action must terminate within 60 days (after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted to Congress). Article III alleges Mr. Hegseth continued conducting hostile military operations in Iran beyond the mandatory statutory deadlines of May 1 and June 1, 2026, without congressional extensions.

Article IV: Ignoring Laws That Minimise Civilian Casualities

This Article accuses Mr. Hegseth of “cultivating a warmaking culture” and a “course of conduct that effected the systemic deterioration and removal of Department of Defence infrastructure that Congress had mandated by law to limit collateral damage to civilians and non-military objects during military operations”, among other allegations.

It specifically highlights the February 28, 2026, cruise missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Iran, which killed and wounded over 200 civilians, mostly children.

Article V: Extrajudicial Killings

Article V targets a strike campaign against suspected narcotics smuggling vessels in international waters (in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean) that resulted in at least 221 deaths across 63 attack events.

It charges Mr. Hegseth with using lethal military force instead of standard maritime law enforcement framework (sections 102 and 522 of Title 14), lowering targeting standards, and ordering or permitting actions that denied quarter and failed to rescue shipwrecked survivors.

It alleges that Secretary Hegseth “endangered United States law enforcement personnel by substituting lethal military targeting for the established maritime law-enforcement practices of interdiction, search, seizure, arrest, and prosecution”.

Article VI: Suppressing Free Speech

This Article alleges that Mr. Hegseth weaponised the Department of Defence to retaliate against Senator Mark Kelly (a retired United States Navy captain, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut who flew 39 combat missions during the First Gulf War), after Mr. Kelly publicly reminded service members of their right to refuse illegal orders.

It accuses that Secretary Hegseth “retaliated against and sought to intimidate United States Senator Mark Kelly”, issued a Secretarial Letter of Censure, threatened court-martial recall and criminal prosecution and asserted in court filings that military authority supersedes judicial and legislative oversight over retired service members’ speech.

Article VII: Kidnapping of a Sovereign Foreign Leader

This article addresses the January 3, 2026, military operations in Caracas, Venezuela, involving over 200 special operations personnel and 150 aircrafts. It charges Mr. Hegseth of initiating an unconstitutional act of war, one that was committed without any constitutional or statutory authorisation. It also accuses him of forcibly capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, an operation the articles assert was falsely framed as narcotics enforcement but executed to seize control of foreign oil reserves.

It states that “he gambled the lives of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel in order to facilitate the illegal taking of national oil”.

Article VIII: Unlawful War in Yemen

The last Article of impeachment focuses on ‘Operation Rough Rider’, a 52-day campaign in Yemen with 1,100 strikes against targets that resulted in roughly 224 civilian deaths. In less than eight weeks, there were almost as many civilian deaths in Yemen as U.S. military actions had caused in that country during the preceding twenty-three years, according to the Resolution.

Secretary Hegseth initiated and directed Operation Rough Rider without Congressional authority, himself acknowledging in some leaked conversations with other senior officials that no imminent threat existed to justify launching the operation.

(With ANI inputs)

Published – November 10, 2026 02:03 pm IST

Rep Thomas Massie on Monday (November 9, 2026) moved to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pressing his fellow Republicans to remove one of the Trump administration’s most prominent figures following sweeping election losses blamed in part on fallout from the war in Iran.

Mr. Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read the impeachment resolution from the House floor just hours after it opened for the first day of sessions after the midterms. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.

The Congressman, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in a primary earlier this year, said Mr. Hegseth’s actions amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mr. Hegseth, he said, “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders” and “remains a threat to the Constitution.”

President Donald Trump lashed out at Massie personally just hours after the Congressman read the resolution, calling him a “loser” who “has a lot of hatred in his heart.”

A vote in the House could come by mid-week, but next steps are highly uncertain. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries supports the measure. If most Democrats follow him, Mr. Massie would only need support from a few Republicans to impeach Hegseth.

If the House votes to impeach, it would fall to to the Senate to either dismiss the charges or hold a trial. Republicans remain in the majority in both chambers, until the new Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control.

Sen Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, endorsed the impeachment push. “Hegseth must stand trial before the Senate,” he said.

Republican leaders, who are eager to use their final weeks in power executing their own agenda, expressed frustration at the move. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has tried to prevent the vote, said impeachment “in the middle of hostilities abroad would be a terrible, terrible look, a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see that.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t sure why the vote was being held now.

“We’ll see what their ultimate decision is over there,” he said of the House. “We’ll have to deal with it accordingly here.”

Hegseth issues his own defense, prepares for a fight

Mr. Hegseth is stepping up his public statements ahead of the vote, telling reporters that he’s eager to defend the military actions that he and Mr. Trump have taken against Iran, Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Venezuela’s previous leaders.

After giving a speech at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, he brushed aside the impeachment push.

“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, but their disagreements are with success,” he told reporters. He added that “if we want to litigate” the military actions that the Trump administration has taken, “I’m happy to do it all day long.”

Asked about Vice President JD Vance blaming the Iran war for the massive GOP losses in the election, Mr. Hegseth noted that Mr. Trump said he would do it again, and “I agree.”

Mr. Hegseth also announced that he would hold a rare news conference on Tuesday (November 10)- his first in over 180 days – on the impeachment threat.

Mr. Hegseth argued that the war was necessary because “someone had to confront the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon” and said “the choice was don’t act and wish it away or take a bold move.”

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has 440.9 kg of uranium that is enriched up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.

Mr. Trump defended Hegseth to reporters on Monday, commending him for having “won the war” in Venezuela and “winning the war” in Iran, which continues to drag on.

Pentagon chief insists Iran is ‘devastated’

Mr. Hegseth reiterated that “Iran is devastated,” even though the Islamic Republic has been able to keep striking military bases in West Asia that are used by the United States, causing billions of dollars in damage, as well as commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions to shipping in the waterway, where one-fifth of the world’s oil passed before the war, have led to higher energy prices that hit voters’ pocketbooks.

Mr. Hegseth’s defence of the war comes after about six in 10 voters said the U.S. made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended his fellow Cabinet secretary, saying that he believes Hegesth has been doing “a great job” and that its unfair that a Republican is pushing the impeachment effort.

“I work with him. And so I see perhaps a side of him that the media doesn’t see and members of Congress may not see,” Rubio told reporters at the Group of Seven industrialised democracies gathering in Paris. “But I think Pete works really hard. He’s incredibly smart.”

Published – November 10, 2026 11:21 am IST

Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Defence Secretary, calls himself the Secretary of War, part of his effort to rebrand ‌a military he said was too weak and “woke” when he took office last year. Now, with ​a House impeachment vote expected this week, he could soon share something in common with an ⁠actual secretary of war.

William Belknap, who held that title in 1876, became the first, and to date only, civilian leader of the U.S. military to be impeached by Congress.

U.S. Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, introduced articles of impeachment on Monday (November 9, 2026), setting off a two-day ‌clock for an expected House vote on charges including waging war against Iran without congressional approval and other abuses of power.

Congressional sources say the resolution may have the simple majority needed to pass the Republican-controlled ‌House before Democrats take over on January 3. Conviction appears unlikely in the Senate, however, where a two-thirds ‌majority ⁠is required and Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats.

House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed the effort, saying impeachment “in ⁠the middle of hostilities abroad” would be “a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see.”

Voter anger over the war helped Democrats win control of Congress in last week’s midterm elections, intensifying Republican divisions over a conflict that Vice-President J.D. Vance has publicly questioned and Mr. Hegseth has ​defended as “courageous and historic.”

Accused of taking huge kickbacks, ‌Belknap handed President Ulysses Grant his resignation ahead of his scheduled impeachment vote and, according to a Senate history, “burst into tears.” The House impeached him anyway, but the Senate later acquitted him after falling short of the required two-thirds majority.

By contrast, Mr. Hegseth is promising to stay and fight.

Hegseth defiant

Mr. Hegseth has mounted a social media campaign, saying ‌in a defiant video message last week that he would not back down. He also drew a ​comparison to President Donald Trump, who was impeached twice, saying: “It didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.”

Asked if he had enough Republican support to defeat the impeachment push, Mr. Hegseth ⁠said on Monday (November 9, 2026): “We’re not worried about that.” He announced a Tuesday (November 10, 2026) press conference, his first at the Pentagon since May.

Mr. Trump has backed Mr. Hegseth and condemned the impeachment push in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday (November 8, 2026).

“They want to impeach him. ‌Very unfair. We had two wars, we won both,” Mr. Trump said, according to a CBS transcript of the full interview.

Mr. Trump referred to both the Iran war, which is at an impasse, and to Venezuela, where the U.S. military deposed that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in a surprise January commando raid on his compound in the Venezuelan capital.

Defence spending at risk?

Some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern that if Mr. Hegseth stays, his strained relationship with Congress will undermine the Trump administration’s push for a $1.5 trillion defence spending package.

Mr. Massie, a Trump critic who is leaving office in January, warned in a statement on Monday (November 9, 2026) ‌that impeachment would be “much gentler” than what’s in store for Mr. Hegseth once Democrats take control in January.

“They will hold hearings and trials. President ​Trump should replace Secretary Hegseth now while he can still get a replacement confirmed in the Senate,” Mr. Massie said.

Democrats have promised to investigate Mr. Hegseth over issues including the firing of the chairman of the ⁠Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior leaders.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Sunday (November 8, 2026) he was a “hard yes” on a ⁠measure to impeach Mr. Hegseth.

Mr. Massie’s articles of impeachment accuse Mr. Hegseth of “high crimes and misdemeanours” ranging from waging the Iran war to various alleged abuses of power, including violating the free speech rights of U.S. Senator Mark ‌Kelly, an Arizona Democrat.

Last year, Mr. Hegseth sought to prosecute Mr. Kelly after he and five other Democrats in Congress with backgrounds in the military and intelligence urged U.S. troops to refuse illegal orders. Mr. Hegseth accused them of sedition, something ​Mr. Trump at the time said in a social media post was “punishable by DEATH!”

Published – November 10, 2026 01:54 am IST