The House of Representatives voted 211-204 on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, to refer an impeachment resolution against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee — a procedural move that ends the effort for the current Congress without anyone having to vote on the charges themselves.
The resolution's author, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, described the motion plainly: a "procedural motion to kill the resolution." He was the only Republican to vote against his own party.
Why the House had to act at all
Massie filed the 34-page resolution, carrying eight articles of impeachment, on Monday, November 9. He filed it as a privileged resolution, a form that obliges the House to dispose of the matter within two legislative days — by tabling it or sending it to committee. That is the mechanism that forced a floor vote on a measure the Republican leadership had no interest in holding.
He had tried once before. Massie introduced the articles in September, but the vote never happened: Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the House early ahead of the midterm elections.
Referral is not rejection on the merits. The Judiciary Committee is not required to take the resolution up, and with the current Congress ending in January, it almost certainly will not.
What the articles allege
The eight articles center on military operations ordered during the war with Iran and on actions in Latin America and the Middle East. They include:
- three alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution over operations against Iran, conducted without congressional authorization;
- alleged violations of laws requiring the minimization of civilian casualties, citing a US strike on an Iranian elementary school that the resolution says killed or injured more than 200 people;
- retaliation against Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, over a video advising service members on refusing unlawful orders, framed in the resolution as the suppression of protected speech;
- the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, described in the document as a sovereign foreign leader;
- an "unlawful" war in Yemen;
- extrajudicial killings in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific that the administration has said were carrying drugs.
Hegseth's response
Hegseth held his first Pentagon press conference in six months and called the impeachment push a political spectacle and "a farce."
"What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it's not accountability," he said. Asked about the operations named in the articles, he did not distance himself from any of them: "I stand behind every one of these operations. I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow."
President Donald Trump praised the secretary on social media, giving him "'A' PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman," and called Massie a "TOTAL LOSER." Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that the suggestion Hegseth had committed impeachable crimes was absurd.
The personal history is not incidental to the vote count. Massie lost his May primary to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL backed by Trump — and endorsed by Hegseth, who campaigned against the congressman. Massie said he had not lined up votes before filing, and framed the resolution as a matter of doing what he believed was right rather than of winning.
What happens in January
Democrats won control of the House in the midterms, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York — expected to become Speaker in January — said his party will move to force Hegseth out of the job once it takes over. That makes Tuesday's vote less a verdict than a delay: the same charges can be refiled by a majority that wants to hear them, with subpoena power attached.
The vote came on a day the House and Senate Republican conferences were also choosing their leaders for the next Congress, which is part of why a 34-page indictment of a sitting cabinet secretary took up less of the chamber's attention than it otherwise might have.
Reporting from Stars and Stripes, Breaking Defense, Time and CBS News.
