Massie Files Impeachment Articles Against Hegseth for Illegal Iran War, Boat Murders

Rep. Thomas Massie on Tuesday filed articles of impeachment against US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his roles in waging an illegal war against Iran and conducting a spree of boat bombings that many human rights groups and international law experts consider acts of murder.

Massie (R-Ky.), who earlier this year lost a Republican primary election to a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump, accused Hegseth of a wide variety of misconduct across a set of eight impeachment articles.

The most prominent allegedly impeachable conduct highlighted by Massie involves the Iran War, which was launched in February without any congressional authorization.

Massie argued that, in carrying out the war, Hegseth violated the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which specified that the president cannot send the US military into combat operations absent "a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

Congress, Massie noted, did not declare war against Iran, nor enact "any specific statutory authorization" for the use of force against the country. Additionally, Massie wrote, "no national emergency had been created by an attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

Massie said that Hegseth "nevertheless knowingly executed and implemented the order to commence such hostilities," which he described as an abuse of his powers.

The GOP lawmaker argued in a separate impeachment article that Hegseth further violated the law by ignoring a war powers resolution passed earlier this year by both chambers of the US Congress that compelled him to end hostilities with Iran.

In a fourth impeachment article, Hegseth is accused of "ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties" by tearing up rules of engagement that the defense secretary has openly derided as "stupid."

It was this recklessness, Massie alleged, that led to the deadly US attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the city of Minab, Iran, which killed more than 150 schoolchildren and dozen teachers.

"By directing the Department of Defense in a manner that foreseeably dismantled the safeguards necessary to distinguish civilian objects from military objectives," Massie wrote, "Secretary Hegseth thereby effected the murder of civilians and abused the trust of the men and women under his command by requiring them to conduct military operations within a targeting and legal-review system that he had deliberately degraded."

The fifth article of impeachment accuses Hegseth of conducting an unlawful campaign of extrajudicial killings by bombing alleged drug-trafficking vessels in international waters.

Massie said that this campaign sentenced people to death merely on the suspicion of criminal conduct, "without judicial process, without congressional authorization, and without establishing a lawful basis for treating such persons or vessels as military targets."

The result of this, Massie continued, is that Hegseth has anointed himself "the roles of judge, jury, and executioner and asserted a unilateral power to determine who may live and who may die."

"Such a power is foreign to the rule of law," Massie continued, "repugnant to the legal traditions and fundamental values of the United States and the Western world, and contrary to United States law and customary international law."

At least 225 people so far have been killed because of the boat bombing spree.

Other articles of impeachment accuse Hegseth of attempting to suppress free speech by threatening to court marshal Sen. Mark Kelly (R-Ariz.) after he reminded US military personnel that they should not carry out illegal orders; of illegally kidnapping a foreign leader by having the military abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; and of launching unauthorized combat operations in Yemen.