Hegseth’s Illegal War, Extrajudicial Killings and Political Targeting Warrant Impeachment
Washington, D.C. — On Tuesday, a coalition of more than 40 civil society organizations sent a letter calling on all House members to vote for every article of impeachment filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. On Monday, Rep. Thomas Massie filed the eight articles and the House is expected to begin voting on them Tuesday evening. In their letter, the groups called out Hegseth’s prosecution of the unauthorized Iran war, his approval of lethal military strikes on fishing boats and his unprecedented political attacks on Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as reasons to support impeachment.
The letter demands that members defend Congress’s constitutional authority consistently including in Iran, Venezuela, the boat strikes and Yemen, regardless of members’ views on the politics of any particular operation. The coalition behind the letter include Demand Progress, MoveOn, OxFam America, Public Citizen and 39 other organizations.
“Pete Hegseth’s time at the Pentagon has done grievous harm to the nation and to the Constitution,” said Demand progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian. “This is a man who ignored the will of Congress to execute an illegal war in Iran, kidnapped a foreign leader for oil, restarted war on Yemen, sent missiles to kill suspected drug traffickers and weaponized the Pentagon against a political enemy. Every House member who cares about the Constitution must vote for every single article of impeachment filed against Pete Hegseth.”
“Congress never authorized the war with Iran,” stated the letter. “Secretary Hegseth directed U.S. forces into hostilities in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. Both chambers went further and adopted H. Con. Res. 86, directing the President to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. The Pentagon continued the war anyway. A vote to impeach would affirm that a defense secretary can be held accountable for carrying on a war Congress never authorized and expressly called on the President to end.”