House Democrat to File Articles of Impeachment Against Pete Hegseth

Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar accuses the former Fox News host of ordering war crimes and allowing dangerous security lapses at the Pentagon

Photo by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons (modified)

Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar on Thursday became the first Democrat to file articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, accusing Trump’s Pentagon chief of murder and gross incompetence.

The move follows a litany of reports scrutinizing Hegseth’s orders to murder shipwrecked survivors whose boat was destroyed in a series of airstrikes targeting alleged drug smuggling operations in the Caribbean Sea. During the strikes, Hegseth reportedly ordered military officials to “kill everybody,” including people seen clinging to floating debris, even though international law requires that anyone who is no longer capable of fighting must be spared, and if at sea, promptly rescued.

While the White House has not denied the incident, the president has tried to deflect responsibility away from Hegseth’s homicidal incompetence, instead choosing to blame the admirals tasked with conducting the strikes. Nevertheless, inside the Pentagon, the buck ultimately stops at Hegseth’s desk, and nobody can deny his role.

“Pete Hegseth is uniquely unqualified to serve as Secretary of Defense,” Thanedar said on Thursday. “Every day he serves in this role, he puts American servicemembers and their families in danger. He gave direct, unlawful orders to kill every single person on a civilian boat from Venezuela, violating the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual.”

Likewise, Thanedar addressed Hegseth’s unique lack of fitness to serve as defense secretary, noting his mishandling of classified information earlier in the year, wherein he accidentally leaked top-secret war plans to the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

“Additionally, his mishandling of classified information, leaking war plans in a Signal chat which included sensitive operations details, including target systems and attack times, has put American lives at risk,” the Michigan representative added. “He can no longer serve as our Secretary of Defense, which is why I am introducing these articles of impeachment.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has however dismissed the idea of impeaching Hegseth or other Trump officials, citing the difficulty of gaining enough support from Republicans to remove them from office.

Nevertheless, Thanedar believes there is still a chance to sway enough of his conservative colleagues to impeach Hegseth once they are presented with the evidence — just as the House voted near-unanimously to release the Epstein files in November.

“If Republicans are willing to look at this for the merit of this case and not just their loyalty to President Trump, this can be done,” he argued. “Republicans need to look at this as laws that have been broken; war crimes have been committed.”

In any case, it is obvious that Pete Hegseth was never fit to lead the Pentagon, and Congress has a moral obligation to remove him from office as soon as possible. Even if they lack the votes to convict the defense secretary, every Democrat must join Thanedar in condemning the Trump administration’s war crimes and heinous misuses of the United States military. Certainly, our service members deserve better.

It’s time for Pete to go — impeach, convict, remove.

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