Impeaching Hegseth

 

For better or worse, it looks like the House at least vote on starting impeachment proceedings against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) filed multiple articles of impeachment and is trying to force a vote on the measure as soon as it can be done. If that goes ahead, the House will very likely convict him, but the Senate will very likely acquit him. Conviction in the Senate require 67 votes and the Dems will have 56 at most after Alaska and Mississippi elections are decided. Right now, the Dems have 54.

Massie says there are eight separate impeachment offenses. They accuse Hegseth of engaging in unlawful war or military actions in Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela, “ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties”, engaging in extrajudicial killings; and suppressing free speech rights.

There is more than plenty of evidence to impeach Hegseth. A lot of the evidence is clearly laid out in this 35 minute video by comedian John Oliver. Sure, Oliver is a comedian, not a professional investigator. But that fact doesn’t negate the video clips conveying plenty of damning evidence against Hegseth. We can see and hear it on our own. Committing murder and/or war crimes are among various bits of vicious naughtiness the evidence shows that Hegseth is responsible for.

Hegseth really did commit murder, commit war crime or both

Why bother and waste time?

Would there be any point to impeachment and then a trial and acquittal in the Senate? Would that necessarily be futile and a waste of the extremely precious, maybe very short time that the Dems have in power? Yes, two years is very short time in this context. Some say it’s a waste of dem time in power because the Senate won’t convict. It is probably true that MAGA Senators would vote to acquit. But that ignores the detailed, evidence-based public record that a House impeachment would leave, even if the Senate acquits. Some of the video evidence that Oliver shows really does deserve to be memorialized in a detailed, professional public document.

If the dems don’t spend much House time with this, letting staff and investigators collect the evidence, organize it and write the report, a House impeachment ought to take a limited amount of time the House is in session and debating this. The impeachment document will be of value.

Q1: Assuming the Senate acquits him, is the public record it would create worth impeaching Hegseth?

Q2: Would it be worth impeachment if the Senate votes to convict him?