Hakeem Jeffries is already a hard yes on impeaching Pete Hegseth, and his majority hasn’t even been sworn in.
His newest Republican helper swears the crusade has nothing to do with politics.
And Donald Trump just fired back at one sickening sentence that Democrats will be quoting for months.
A Lame-Duck Congressman Handed the Left Its Favorite Sound Bite
US Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) showed up at a Capitol Hill press conference in the days after the midterms carrying eight articles of impeachment against the War Secretary.
He also brought a line he clearly had practiced.
“In fact, he was very effective at killing schoolchildren in Iran,” Massie told reporters. “He was very effective at extrajudicial killings. There’s no argument in these impeachment articles that he’s ineffective.”
A Republican said that. Out loud, on camera, about the man running the Pentagon for a Republican President.
Massie lost his May primary to Ed Gallrein, the challenger Trump endorsed, and he heads home to Kentucky in January. But he isn’t going quietly. His articles accuse Hegseth of waging war without congressional authorization, ignoring laws meant to protect civilians, and carrying out extrajudicial killings in the strikes on drug boats.
President Trump answered on Truth Social within hours, and he skipped the diplomatic niceties.
“Defeated Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, a total loser, is trying to Impeach perhaps the most popular and successful military official in the Country, Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth,” Trump wrote.
Then came the ask. “With recruitment at an ALL-TIME HIGH, from an all-time low under Sleepy Joe Biden, and TWO VICTORIES, Venezuela and Iran, Pete Hegseth should be praised, not Impeached,” the President continued. “Congress, stand up for Pete!!!”
Three Republican Votes Decide Whether Jeffries Gets His Trophy Early
Trump aimed that last line at a very short list of people.
Republicans control the House by a margin of 218 to 214 until the new Congress arrives. Impeachment takes only a simple majority. If every Democrat votes yes, Massie needs just two more Republicans to hand Jeffries a scalp before Jeffries even picks up the Speaker’s gavel.
House rules treat impeachment resolutions as privileged, so leaders have two legislative days to table the measure, ship it to committee, or allow a straight vote. Speaker Mike Johnson dodged the first version in September by sending members home early, and the resolution expired. Massie simply filed it again.
Jeffries didn’t leave anybody guessing. “I am a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” he said on This Week.
And House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told Newsmax it was “very possible” the votes exist, even though he declined to sign on himself.
Massie, for his part, sold his effort as “a much gentler version” of what Democrats plan once they take power. That’s a bit like handing a burglar a smaller crowbar and calling it a favor to the homeowner.
The Verdict Showed Up Before the Investigation Did
The deaths Massie invoked are real, and nobody should pretend otherwise. On the first day of the war, a US missile struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the city of Minab. Reports put the toll well above a hundred, most of them children. Preliminary Pentagon findings pointed to a targeting mistake built on outdated intelligence.
Those families deserve a full public accounting. Senators from both parties have pressed the Pentagon to release its findings, and they’re right to keep pressing.
But the Pentagon hasn’t finished its work or published its conclusions. Massie didn’t wait. He took a targeting failure that investigators reportedly trace to stale data somewhere in the chain and hung it around one man’s neck in a single sentence.
His articles also fault Hegseth for shrinking the office meant to prevent civilian harm. That’s a legitimate fight for an oversight hearing or a budget markup. It sits a long way from treason, bribery, or high crimes.
Washington has watched a congressman pull this exact stunt before.
John Murtha Ran This Play First, and Marines Paid the Price
In November 2005, a roadside bomb killed a Marine in Haditha, Iraq, and 24 Iraqi civilians died in the hours that followed. Six months later, long before military prosecutors finished their work, the late Democrat Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania stepped up to the microphones with a verdict already written.
“Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” Murtha said.
Cold blood. Months before the military filed a single charge.
Prosecutors eventually charged four enlisted Marines and four officers. The military dropped the cases against six of them, and a court-martial acquitted another. The squad leader, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, pleaded guilty in 2012 to negligent dereliction of duty and walked away without a day behind bars.
Wuterich sued Murtha for defamation. He lost, though not on the facts. A federal appeals court ruled in 2009 that Murtha enjoyed immunity because he spoke in his official role as a lawmaker.
Hold on to that ruling for a second. A member of Congress can stand at a podium, call a man a killer of children, and never face a court over it. Massie surely knows that.
Maybe he just got carried away in front of the cameras. Politicians reach for the sharpest phrase in the drawer all the time. But Massie had plenty of time to choose his words for that press conference, and he picked these.
Democrats Just Got a Republican Voice for Their January Show
The Left has pushed the war-crimes charge since spring. US Representative Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), who filed her own impeachment articles against Hegseth, put it plainly: “It is a war crime.”
That line never traveled far, because it came from exactly where everybody expected. Massie’s version is different. Democrats can now open their hearings by reading a Republican’s words into the record and calling the whole production a matter of conscience.
The war itself makes this uglier. The neoconservatives who spent months on cable pushing the administration toward Iran sold a quick, clean victory that never materialized. JD Vance warned the fight would cost Republicans, and the voters agreed with him. Massie’s frustration over war powers has a real constitutional root, and plenty of America First conservatives share his distaste for open-ended conflict.
But the pundits who peddled the war aren’t facing impeachment. The man who carried out the orders is. And a Senate trial requires 67 votes to remove him, a number Democrats won’t reach even with their new majority in January.
So the real product here is the spectacle. Impeach Hegseth, march the “killing schoolchildren” line through a few weeks of hearings, and then point the same sentence at the Oval Office. Jeffries promised voters lower grocery bills. His first big project looks a lot more like a show trial with a Republican name stamped on the opening act.
Trump asked Congress to stand up for Pete. The next roll call will show exactly which Republicans heard him.
Massie, meanwhile, opened his pitch with a line he obviously wanted on the record forever.
“The reality is, we’re not indicting him for being bad at his job,” he said.
Sources: Mediaite, “Trump Urges Republicans to Fight Hegseth Impeachment Push: ‘Stand Up for Pete!!!’”; Antiwar.com, “‘He Was Very Effective at Killing Schoolchildren’: Massie Reintroduces Articles of Impeachment Against Hegseth”; ABC News, “Trump says he’d ‘stand by’ Hegseth even if he’s impeached”; The Intercept, “Impeachment Vote Looms for Hegseth”; CNBC, “Pete Hegseth impeachment articles introduced by Rep. Massie”; NPR, “Thomas Massie files articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth”; Office of Rep. Thomas Massie press release; CBS News, “GOP Rep. Thomas Massie introduces impeachment articles against Hegseth over Iran war”; Reuters, “Lawmakers demand Pentagon release findings from probe of Iran school strike”; The Week, “Inquiry blames US for deadly strike on Iran school”; Common Dreams; Fox News transcript, “Haditha Marine Sues Rep. John Murtha”; NBC Connecticut, “Marine Can’t Sue Murtha for Defamation”; Courthouse News Service
