The House returns this week with Rep. Thomas Massie promising to force a vote on impeaching Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. In September Massie noticed a privileged resolution with eight articles of impeachment—the text is in the Congressional Record and on his office site. Axios and Roll Call report Republican leaders expect a roll call after the midterms rearranged House math. Earlier Democratic impeachment resolutions sit in Judiciary; Massie's is the live vehicle.
What the Constitution actually authorizes
Article I gives the House the sole power of impeachment. Article II, Section 4 says the President, Vice President, and all civil officers—including a Secretary of Defense—shall be removed on impeachment for, and conviction of, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." That is a high bar for a reason—not a warrant to fire a cabinet officer over a disputed war, a speech, or a personnel action.
History matters—and the record is clear. In 250 years of American history, no Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense has ever been impeached for conducting military operations. Impeaching a secretary now for executing the Commander-in-Chief's lawful military direction would set a dangerous precedent: it would turn the chain of command into a political weapon and teach the force that carrying out presidential war policy is a high crime.
Serious charges still have to survive law and facts
Honesty cuts both ways. Massie's articles allege more than taste. They charge starting and continuing hostilities with Iran without the authorization or War Powers predicates he insists on; ignoring a concurrent resolution that passed both chambers directing withdrawal; degrading civilian-harm safeguards after a strike he says killed and wounded more than 200 civilians at a school in Minab; a lethal maritime campaign against alleged narcotics traffickers; retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly; the seizure of Nicolás Maduro; and Yemen operations without his preferred predicates. See Massie's article summary.
Those are serious charges. A presidential order does not automatically make a Secretary's execution lawful—Chief Justice Marshall made that clear in Little v. Barreme (1804). Neither does a member of Congress convert a disputed statutory theory into a high crime by writing "unlawful" enough times.
Take the concurrent-resolution article. Both chambers did agree to H.Con.Res. 86 directing removal under the War Powers Resolution (House 215–208; Senate 50–48). Concurrent resolutions generally are not presented to the President. Under INS v. Chadha (1983), legislative veto devices that skip presentment are constitutionally suspect. Administrations of both parties have long treated that War Powers removal device as non-binding. Congress has real tools—appropriations, a joint resolution that can become law, or repeal of an authorization it left on the books. A concurrent resolution is not a magic override of Article II.
Authorization left on the books is not unlimited—and not an impeachment shortcut
I have long argued that Congress should own major uses of force. In January 2020 I wrote that the War Powers Act is "the wrong tool & considered unconstitutional," and that the healthier answer is a clear authorization—not a weak War Powers rebuke. In February 2020 I said I am "all for Congress retaking its war declaration powers" and "strongly disagree that weak war powers resolutions are the right tool." My 2014 doctrine and 2022 Contract With the Voters said force that risks American lives needs Congress's full support—"No rogue action by the president." Those oversight positions stand.
What I am not doing now is demanding a brand-new Iran Authorization for Use of Military Force as the price of opposing Massie's articles. The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force remains law. Congress knows the legal fights over its scope. It failed to repeal it. That failure matters. Leaving an authorization on the books is not the same as writing a blank check for every campaign critics dislike—and it is not a high crime for a Secretary to execute the President's military direction under authorities Congress has not withdrawn.
The 2001 statute authorizes necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons the President determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the September 11 attacks, or harbored such organizations or persons. How far that text reaches in today's Iran fight is contested. Public State Department Country Reports on Terrorism and related designations have alleged Iranian facilitation and sanctuary for al-Qaeda figures; those are executive allegations and sanctions findings, not a substitute for inventing a presidential determination or a court judgment I do not have. My reading is that the 2001 authorization Congress left standing is enough for this fight. Critics who want that authority gone have a constitutional path: repeal it, or pass a presentable cutoff, and put both on the President's desk.
The chain of command is not a campaign prop
I commanded a B-1 squadron and later an Air Force wing. Officers own lawful orders. The elected President sits at the top of that chain. If the House starts impeaching secretaries because they carried out presidential military direction that members wish had been written differently, the force learns a poisonous lesson: obey the Commander-in-Chief at your peril.
That is why I have treated the Hegseth impeachment drive as more than a personnel spat. In my November Democracy Files column I wrote: "Turn the Secretary of War into a proxy fight over the President's orders and you do not get a healthier force." That confusion is exactly what adversaries want while Iranian leaders read American election returns and talk about the end of U.S. hegemony.
Policy fights belong in authorization debates, defense bills, and oversight hearings. If members believe the Iran campaign must end, put a presentable cutoff on the floor—or fail honestly. If they believe Maduro's capture, the maritime campaign, or Yemen strikes were unlawful, prove the facts and the statute—not a second-bite veto after an election.
The House can dislike a war, a secretary, or a president. It cannot invent a healthy republic by treating impeachment as a substitute for the war-power fight it keeps losing on the floor—especially when it left the post-9/11 authorization standing.
Congress: debate the war. Stop using the Secretary of Defense as a human shield for a fight with the Commander-in-Chief.
