House votes 211-204 to send Massie's Hegseth impeachment resolution to committee, effectively ending it

WASHINGTON (Nov. 10) — The House is headed toward a vote this week on whether to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read eight articles of impeachment from the House floor on Monday, Roll Call reported.

Update, 7:30 p.m. ET: The House voted 211 to 204 on Tuesday evening to refer the impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, a move that effectively ends the effort, CBS News reported. Massie was the only Republican to vote with Democrats against sending it to committee, according to CBS News and NBC News. The referral means the House will not hold a direct vote on the eight articles. Massie said Monday he would not bring up another resolution, CBS News reported, and he is retiring in early January after losing his primary earlier this year. The Associated Press reported that the vote may only delay an impeachment push, with Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate in January.

Update, 1:35 p.m. ET: Hegseth pushed back hard at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday, his first on camera there since May 5, calling the effort "a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment," ABC News reported. He argued that the military operations named in the articles were lawful actions directed by President Donald Trump and that policy disagreements do not rise to the high crimes the Constitution requires for removal, according to ABC News and The Associated Press. "I stand behind every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow," he said, as quoted by AP and Stars and Stripes.

Massie said on X after the briefing that the House would vote Tuesday evening on a procedural motion to kill the resolution, such as a motion to refer it to committee, and that if that effort fails the House would move on to debate and a vote on the articles themselves, Stars and Stripes reported. Trump praised Hegseth's performance in a Truth Social post, according to the same report.

Massie introduced the measure as a privileged resolution, a tool that lets a member force the House to take up a question its leaders might otherwise set aside. The House must act on it within two legislative days, which puts a vote on Wednesday at the latest, Fox News reported. Reading the 34-page resolution aloud took more than an hour, according to Fox News and Stars and Stripes.

Three of the articles accuse Hegseth of waging war against Iran without authorization from Congress, in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Stars and Stripes reported. Others concern military actions in Venezuela, Yemen, the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, along with charges that he disregarded the protection of civilians in wartime and suppressed the free speech of a U.S. senator, according to Roll Call. Fox News reported that the senator is Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, over a video in which Kelly urged troops to resist "unlawful orders."

Speaker Mike Johnson now has to rule on whether the resolution is properly privileged. If it is, the House can vote on the resolution itself, or on a motion to table it or send it to committee, either of which would effectively end it, Roll Call reported. The Congressional Research Service has found that recent attempts to impeach an official this way have not succeeded, and in past impeachments the House has nearly always investigated first.

Massie first filed articles against Hegseth on Sept. 15, but Johnson called a recess before a vote could take place, The Guardian reported. The new resolution carries the same eight articles, according to Roll Call.

The push comes a week after Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, losses that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have tied to the Iran war and the rise in gas prices that followed, USA Today reported. Republicans still hold the House majority until the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

Several House Republicans told Fox News last week that they believed the resolution could pass, citing absences among members who lost their races and frustration with Hegseth, though most Republicans are still expected to vote against it. Massie told reporters Monday that he suspected some Republicans might support it but that he had neither asked for nor received commitments, Roll Call reported. Hegseth called the effort a "shame" that "won't work" in a video posted to X on Friday, according to Fox News.

If the House impeaches Hegseth, removing him from office would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate.