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impeachment
Vote to Check Trump's Power—Then Demand Victorious Dems Follow Through
Of all the accountability tools that will be available should the Democrats prevail on November 3, impeachment and court reform stand out as the most powerful.
Nov 01, 2026
It’s not enough for the Democrats to win the midterms. Whether they take back one or both chambers of Congress, their overriding objective must be to cripple the remainder of Donald Trump’s presidency and dismantle the MAGA movement he leads. Holding Trump and his key enablers to account for their lawlessness and corruption will be the standard for success. Without accountability, there will be no justice and no end to the growing threat of fascism in America.
Of all the accountability tools that will be available should the Democrats prevail on November 3, impeachment and court reform stand out as the most powerful. Both are implicitly on the midterm ballot, and while neither is a magic bullet for checking Trumpism, they can and must be deployed far more aggressively and urgently than in the past.
The road ahead won’t be easy, but the party may never get another opportunity.
Impeachment
The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision on presidential immunity (Trump v. United States), penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, has made it all but impossible to hold Trump accountable through ordinary criminal prosecutions. As legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has noted, Roberts’ opinion contains language that “suggests the president cannot even be investigated for his official actions,” much less indicted.
But the immunity ruling in no way undermines Congress’ impeachment powers. Even Trump’s lead lawyer in the case—D. John Sauer, now the administration’s solicitor general—acknowledged the broad scope of the impeachment power, contending that the Constitution’s Impeachment Judgment Clause (Article I, Section 3, Clause 7) requires that a president be impeached by the House and convicted in the Senate before being prosecuted criminally. Although the court rejected Sauer’s prerequisite argument, it recognized, consistent with the views of the Founders, that impeachment is a political process separate and apart from criminal prosecutions.
As Trump’s lawlessness and corruption have become more brazen and unrestrained, appeals for a third impeachment are mounting. In early October, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a series of editorials and op-eds calling on Congress to act in response to the president’s unconstitutional military operations in Iran and elsewhere; his attacks on judges, journalists, law firms, and political opponents; his threats to execute members of Congress; his reckless deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents; his inhumane mass deportations and detentions; his assault on birthright citizenship; and his use of the presidency for base self-enrichment, among myriad other “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
As Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein put it in their contribution to the Inquirer series, “Trump has turned the Constitution into a museum piece and claimed the infinite unchecked power of a dictator.” In their view, the “doubting Thomases who dismiss” a third impeachment are turning a blind eye to Trump’s “litany” of derelictions.
Even if conviction in the Senate is unlikely, the process itself has enormous value. Writing for LawFare in 2021 at the outset of Trump’s second impeachment trial, Princeton University political science professor Keith Whittington explained:
[R]emoval and disqualification are not the sole purposes of the impeachment clause. The impeachment process is a “grand inquest” in the sense that it is congressional oversight on steroids. The impeachment power gives the first, most democratic branch of the government the ability to scrutinize the actions of individuals in the other branches of government and call them to account for their actions… What’s more, the impeachment process serves as a warning to future officeholders.
There is also no reason for the Democrats to limit impeachment proceedings to the president. The vice president and all civil officers of the United States, including the justices of the Supreme Court, will all be fair game. Aware of his exposure, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly eyeing a Senate seat in Tennessee, hoping that if Marsha Blackburn becomes the state’s next governor, she will appoint him to fill her vacant seat, as senators are not considered civil officers of the US.
Many Trump aides are also reportedly seeking pardons to protect themselves from future federal criminal charges. Trump has expressed a willingness to comply, but the Constitution is very clear that the pardon power does not extend to cases of impeachment.
With the midterm elections behind them and an electoral base demanding action, we could see not one but multiple impeachment inquiries in the House—and, later, trials in the Senate—aimed at airing the facts of the Trump administration’s malfeasance for all the world to see, and serving as a catalyst for legislation to prevent another Trump-like tyrant from rising in the future.
Court Reform
John Roberts and his Republican confederates have issued a blistering succession of reactionary majority opinions, not only on presidential immunity, but also on voting rights, gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, environmental protection, gun control, abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance, the use of dark money in politics, and equality for LGBTQ+ people, to cite just a few of the worst.
Reversing the tide and restoring our rights will require court reform. And while the most far-reaching reforms—such as more justices and term limits—will have to wait until the election of a Democratic president, a new Democratic Senate majority will be able to immediately block the confirmation of any pending or future Trump judicial nominees.
Clarence Thomas, 78, and Samuel Alito, 76, are the Supreme Court’s oldest members. Both are far beyond their salad days, and Alito has said that he is considering retirement before Trump leaves office. If either or both step aside while the Republicans hold the Senate, Trump will undoubtedly replace them with younger and possibly even more extreme jurists, such as James Ho of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, or the obsequious Florida US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who killed the Mar-a-Lago documents case. If the Democrats retake the upper chamber, the two senior justices will likely hang on as long as they can, but neither will outlast the term of the next Democratic president, who can replace them with liberals.
The outlook for the lower federal courts, where the vast majority of cases are decided, is even more favorable. A Democratic Senate majority should mean the end to new Trump judges anywhere in the country.
Where We Come In
Nothing is certain in politics, and it is entirely possible that the Democrats, once back in the majority, will try to mend fences with their MAGA adversaries in a futile attempt to restore the status quo ante Trump.
This is where we come in.
Voting is essential, but it cannot be the end of our political engagement. After the midterms, and throughout the run-up to 2028, we will need to keep the pressure on. We cannot allow the Democrats to chicken out, as they have so often in the past. There can be no more Biden nice guys, and no more Merrick Garlands. We have seen that movie before, and it isn’t worth a sequel.
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A Closing Midterm Message for Progressives Looking to Wrest Power From Tyrant Trump
In media appearances and at public rallies, progressive candidates should pledge to Impeach Trump and authentically summarize what they will fight for—that resonates with left and right voters struggling to have decent livelihoods.
Oct 31, 2026
The Democrats will probably gain control of Congress, but by a small margin rather than a landslide. Donald Trump, the worst, most unpopular outlaw, cruel, lying, corrupt, bigoted, violent, self-enriching, and devastating dictator harming the American people in our history, has greatly helped the Dems in the midterm elections.
Unfortunately, corporate consultants dominate Democratic campaigns—and have failed to capitalize on the political ammunition Trump hands them every day. This allowed Trump to get away with campaigning for toady Republican candidates and to monopolize media attention that should be focused on how the Republicans in Congress allowed the savagery of his egomaniacal and corporatist regime to undermine democracy and harm the American people.
What should progressive candidates highlight between now and election day?
You can assume that what Trump did to wreck, endanger, and weaken America will intensify his efforts to wreck, endanger, and weaken America.
First, they should alert people to the reality that the second two years of Trump’s term will be much worse for them, their children, and many millions of innocent families abroad. The poor from less developed countries were cut off from key medicines, food supplements, and other inexpensive lifesaving supplies when he and Elon Musk illegally shut down the Agency for International Development. They actually bragged about their deadly deed.
Smarting from an electoral rejection that puts him on the defensive, a vengeful, puerile Trump will likely foment upheaval at home and wage war abroad to reclaim center stage. Note, the White House is defiled daily by Trump, who has a dangerously unstable personality and is driven to do whatever he wants, regardless of laws, the Constitution, Congress, the courts, and norms of common decency. He got away with this law-breaking big time in 2025-2026, so get ready for his further unleashing of corporate polluters from the oil and gas and coal industries, smashing what’s left of laws protecting you, the consumer; you, the worker; and you, the ill patient. He will further impede millions of Americans’ access to food stamps, Medicaid, Obamacare, and other social safety nets, like Meals on Wheels and Head Start.
He’ll turn the White House into an even bigger source of gigantic personal enrichment for himself and his family, using the office to coerce, extort, and bribe companies into abject submission. From his own 2025 financial disclosures, his bribe-extort dealings with seedy collaborators netted him $2.1 billion, or, broken down on a 40-hour week, $1.1 million AN HOUR!
Rather than extend this list, you can assume that what Trump did to wreck, endanger, and weaken America will intensify his efforts to wreck, endanger, and weaken America. Expect more wars, more attacks on critical scientific protections and research, more suppression of renewable energy, more punishment of free speech, and more intensely shattered readiness to deal with pandemics, climate catastrophes, and out-of-control generative AI Frankenstein monsters rampaging on their own. This imposter has called these three omnicides a “hoax.”
So, candidates do portray Trump and his Trump Dump as becoming ever more lethally toxic to humanity. Unless, that is, the voters elect a pro-Impeachment Congress to Fire Trump and begin building a lawful country that works for the People. (See my book Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People.)
As of last April, 90% of the Democrats and almost two-thirds of Independents want to Impeach Trump. Probably higher now!
In media appearances and at public rallies, Progressive candidates should authentically summarize what they will fight for—that resonates with left and right voters struggling to have decent livelihoods.
- Raise the frozen federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to at least $15 or $17 an hour. Twenty-five million workers will benefit.
- Raise Social Security benefits, frozen for 45 years, paid for by raising the Social Security tax on the wealthy. About 60 million elderly people will benefit.
- Enact an authentic child tax credit, cutting child poverty in half. Over 60 million children will be better off.
- Catch up with Western countries and Taiwan by passing Medicare for All, lifesaving, far more efficient, and much less aggravating than the present profit-gouging, benefit-denying, corporatized system of greed first.
- Crack down on corporate crooks stealing consumer dollars, worker wages, and pensions. (Saving trillions of dollars yearly and having 90% approval.)
- Adopt childcare, paid family sick leave, and other humane programs long in place in Western Europe and Canada.
- Pass labor laws for safety, economic freedom to speak and band together, and pension protections put forth decades ago. (See: pensionrights.org).
- Invest in crumbling public services and infrastructure in communities. Creating many good jobs.
- Paying for the above by (A) restoring taxes on the very undertaxed or non-taxed super rich and large corporations to the level of the prosperous 1960s; (B) ending huge corporate welfare giveaways, subsidies, and bailouts; and (C) de-bloating the runaway, unaudited military budget, devouring over half of all operating spending by the federal government and getting more wasteful, fraudulent, and controlling corporate contractors by the year.
For more practical ideas, see the attached piece by former Secretary of Labor and current popular blogger Robert Reich, titled "10-Point Plan to Make America Affordable."
This weekend is the perfect time for Midnight Campaigning to reach the many midnight shift workers who keep the country going while we sleep. They are ignored by political candidates. A “thank-you” news release describing the major occupations on the midnight shift and a three-hour series of campaign stops should get candidates recognition for caring. Favorable last-minute news coverage can encourage more voters to turn out.
And finally, a word to registered voters: Political pundits predict that more than half of you will stay home. Don’t! Vote for the candidate of your choice—including write-in candidates. Otherwise, the rascals will be happy to fill the vacuum.
Then watchdog your members of Congress to turn their promises into legislative enactments.
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National Groups Endorse Impeachment Push as Hegseth Reportedly Eyes US Senate Seat in Tennessee
"In the case of Pete Hegseth, lawmakers now face a choice: Will they side with gross incompetence, rampant murder, and an illegal war, or will they finally side with the Constitution?"
Oct 28, 2026
A trio of national advocacy organizations and a constitutional scholar on Wednesday endorsed articles of impeachment that Republican US Rep. Thomas Massie filed last month against Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is reportedly eyeing a soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat as a way to evade his possible removal from office if Democrats retake Congress in next week's midterms.
Free Speech for People, the Removal Coalition, FLARE USA, and Bruce Fein—a constitutional scholar and former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan—announced their support for Massie's (R-Ky.) impeachment articles days after Puck reported that "there’s chatter" on Capitol Hill that Hegseth "has been angling for Sen. Marsha Blackburn to appoint him to her Senate seat, which she would vacate after winning her gubernatorial election."
According to Puck, some Republicans are privately hoping that Trump fires Hegseth before any impeachment effort gains real momentum. The Pentagon denied Puck's reporting, calling it "nothing more than beltway gossip."
Massie's articles accuse Hegseth of unconstitutionally waging war on Iran, "ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties," "extrajudicial killings" in international waters, and the kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without legal authority, among other charges.
“Pete Hegseth has repeatedly demonstrated his contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the fundamental rights of the American people,” John Bonifaz, president of Free Speech for People, said in a statement to Common Dreams. “No secretary of defense is above the law, and no president can authorize a Cabinet official to disregard the Constitution. Rep. Massie’s articles of impeachment present a clear opportunity for Congress to hold Hegseth accountable for his dangerous abuses of power.”
Jessica Denson, founder of the Removal Coalition, said that "it is past time for the corrupt and dangerous members of this lawless administration to face impeachment and removal."
"In the case of Pete Hegseth, lawmakers now face a choice," said Denson. "Will they side with gross incompetence, rampant murder, and an illegal war, or will they finally side with the Constitution?"
Hegseth's impeachment is backed by nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters and 20% of Republicans, according to polling released earlier this month.
"Free Speech for People is urging lawmakers to support Massie’s articles regardless of party," the group said Wednesday. "Hegseth has committed multiple abuses of power and must be impeached and removed from public office."
Massie introduced his impeachment articles months after Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), one of two Iranian Americans in Congress, separately unveiled articles that also cited the Iran war and US military atrocities as reasons Hegseth should be removed from office.
While just 16 House Democrats have cosponsored Ansari's impeachment resolution, Semafor reported earlier this month that "as the Iran war squeezes Republicans ahead of the midterms, Democrats are aligning to call for the defense secretary’s ouster or resignation."
“I 100% believe Pete Hegseth needs to be impeached and removed from office, because not only is he the worst secretary of defense in American history, he is a dangerous war criminal,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) told Semafor.
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In Solitary Confinement for Demanding Trump's Impeachment: Why We Must Stand with Major Jason Watson
Every public servant, civilian or military, swears to support and defend the Constitution. None of them swears loyalty to a president, a party, or a movement.
Oct 26, 2026
For almost two months, an Air Force officer has been sitting alone in a cell, 24 hours a day. When they let him out to eat or exercise, he’s still alone, according to his attorney.
His name is Major Jason Watson. He hasn’t been convicted of anything. Under military law he is presumed innocent, yet he’s still in that cell.
I know something about solitary confinement. I also know what it feels like when a government would rather silence you than answer for its transgressions. That’s why I can’t stay quiet about Major Watson. And it’s why I think we need to talk about the kind of courage this country says it admires, right up until someone actually shows it.
What Major Watson Did
On July 1, Major Watson walked up the House steps of the US Capitol in uniform and stood there holding a sign that read “Impeach. Convict. Remove.” He was calling for the removal of President Trump and Vice President Vance. Capitol Police arrested him. The D.C. charges were dropped, but he was taken from the courthouse straight into Air Force custody and restricted to base. In August he went on CNN and said it again. The next day, the Air Force ordered him into pretrial confinement.
He now faces ten charges under three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ): three under Article 88 for allegedly using “contemptuous words” against the president, five under Article 92 for failing to obey orders or regulations, and two under Article 133 for “conduct unbecoming an officer,” as his lawyers confirmed in a public statement.
I’m not here to argue about uniform regulations. What bothers me, and what should bother anyone paying attention, is what the Article 88 charges and that solitary cell tell us about how power handles real dissent.
Major Watson has shown a steady, stubborn courage that’s rare anywhere, and rarer still when your career and freedom are on the line.
Watson didn’t hide behind a fake name. He didn’t retain or leak anything classified. He put his own name and face on what he believed, in public, knowing what it would cost.
Before he took that stand, he asked himself, “What’s the highest price that I’m willing to pay?” His answer was, more or less, whatever it takes. That’s what bravery looks like. You’re still afraid. You go anyway, knowing hell is coming.
Punished Before He Is Tried
Here is what troubles me most. The military is punishing Major Watson while claiming to follow the very rules that forbid it. Article 13 of the UCMJ says no one being held for trial may be punished, and that pretrial confinement may be no “more rigorous than the circumstances require to insure his presence.” The idea is straight-forward. Someone waiting for a court-martial is presumed innocent, and the military isn’t allowed to treat him as guilty.
Locking a person alone in a cell for months is punishment by any ordinary meaning of the word. Watson’s attorney has said solitary is usually reserved for people who are violent or disobedient, and even then only for a few days or a week. At Watson’s Article 32 hearing, the hearing officer said the isolation was required because he can’t be housed with civilian inmates.
Even if you accept that explanation, it doesn’t undo what isolation does to a person’s mind. And it doesn’t answer the bigger question: why is a peaceful man whose only “offense” was speaking locked up at all? You can’t even argue that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, because officially it isn’t punishment. When the people offended by your words also get to decide what counts as a crime, and what counts as punishment, the law stops being fair or predictable.
I can tell you from experience that solitary is built to grind you down. I was thrown into solitary in prison because I wouldn’t let a guard on a power trip treat me as anything less than a human being. My punishment for standing up for my dignity was a cell less than half the size of my usual cage. No window. No sunlight. Nothing to remind me there was a world outside. No contact with anyone, including my family, who went days without hearing from me and had no idea what was happening.
That kind of isolation isn’t about safety or order or paperwork. It’s about breaking someone, and about sending a message to everyone else. Major Watson stood up against an administration he believes is trampling the Constitution. For that act of conscience, they’re trying to make him disappear.
Article 88 and the Espionage Act
Article 88 makes it a crime for a commissioned officer to use “contemptuous words” against the president, the vice president, Congress, and certain other officials. It is almost never used. A CNN review found only two convictions under it since the modern military code took effect in 1950.
The military’s own Manual for Courts-Martial, as one legal analysis explains, says that criticism of an official in the course of political discussion, even strongly worded criticism, shouldn’t be charged under this article unless it is personally contemptuous. Watson put it simply at his hearing: “discomfort is not contempt.”
For that act of conscience, they’re trying to make him disappear.
How the article gets used is concerning. In 2021, Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller posted videos in uniform demanding accountability from senior leaders over the Afghanistan withdrawal, at one point saying he felt “contempt” for them. He was charged under Article 88 too. With prominent supporters cheering him on, his case went to a special court-martial, the lower-level forum. He spent nine days in the brig, pleaded guilty, and walked away with a letter of reprimand and a $5,000 forfeiture of pay. Watson’s lawyers summed up the problem: “The law will not make the same word a virtue in one officer’s mouth and a felony in another’s.”
I recognize this double standard because I’ve lived it. The Espionage Act of 1917 was written to catch spies. Today it’s regularly used against whistleblowers who tell the public what the government would rather keep quiet, and defendants usually aren’t allowed to argue that their disclosures served the public interest. Groups like PEN America, the ACLU, and Human Rights Watch have warned for years that laws this broad invite selective prosecution. The cases of John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and Thomas Drake show those warnings were right.
Look at Courtney Williams, who worked in a support role for Delta Force at Fort Bragg from 2010 to 2016. She talked to an investigative reporter about sexual harassment and discrimination inside the unit. In April, the FBI arrested her, and she now faces four Espionage Act counts, each carrying up to ten years. Prosecutors say some of what she shared was classified. The reporter she spoke with calls the case retaliation against a whistleblower. Either way, plenty of former special operators talk openly about their units on popular podcasts without ending up in handcuffs.
Article 88 and the Espionage Act are different laws, but they end up doing the same job. They’re old, broad nets that can be thrown over anyone who speaks uncomfortable truths about those in power. Whether the target is a whistleblower or an outspoken officer, the result is silence. And every time we let these tools get dusted off, we make it easier to use them on the next person.
The Oath Wasn’t to a Person
Every public servant, civilian or military, swears to support and defend the Constitution. None of them swears loyalty to a president, a party, or a movement.
There’s a difference between the enlisted and officer oaths worth knowing. Enlisted members promise to “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.” Officers don’t make that promise. Under the officer’s oath, they swear to support and defend the Constitution and to “well and faithfully discharge the duties” of their office. That difference, as the Marine Corps itself explains, is deliberate. An officer’s final loyalty belongs to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to whoever is sitting in the Oval Office.
Watson has said his oath is exactly why he went to those Capitol steps, and that he acted out of duty, not partisanship. His point is that no leader is above the law. Yet “support and defend the Constitution” keeps getting bent into a demand for personal loyalty. People who stand on principle end up in solitary. People who look the other way get promoted.
Service and Speech
I have deep respect for the military and its traditions. The military can’t be anyone’s political tool, and service members have to follow lawful orders. The rules that keep uniforms out of partisan politics exist for good reason: they keep the military under civilian control and out of the hands of any one side. Those rules matter.
But this is about proportion. Joining the military doesn’t mean giving up your basic rights. Courts have long held that service members keep some free-speech protection, even if it is narrower than a civilian’s, as long as their speech doesn’t seriously threaten discipline or the mission.
So it’s fair to ask where the line really is. Does one peaceful protest justify criminal charges and months in solitary? A military confident enough to handle criticism from within its own ranks is stronger than one that keeps people in line through fear.
“I Was Only Following Orders”
We settled the question of blind obedience after World War II. At Nuremberg, the world rejected “just following orders” as an excuse. The principle that came out of those trials says acting on orders doesn’t relieve you of responsibility “provided a moral choice was in fact possible.” Our own military law requires service members to obey lawful orders, not unlawful ones.
We rightly honor people like Hugh Thompson, the Army helicopter pilot who landed his aircraft between American soldiers and fleeing Vietnamese civilians at My Lai in 1968. He was treated as an outcast for years. The Army didn’t award him the Soldier’s Medal until 1998, thirty years later. We can’t keep telling every generation of service members that they have a duty to refuse wrongdoing, then crush the ones who actually say so out loud.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about this from a Birmingham jail cell. We have a duty to obey just laws, he said, and an equal duty to disobey unjust ones. But “one who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”
That’s the tradition Major Watson acted in. He didn’t hide. He stood in the open, told his superiors where he stood, and accepted the consequences. If the right of conscience doesn’t belong to every citizen, it doesn’t really belong to anyone. And a country where no one can tell the powerful the truth isn’t a free country.
What We Owe Him
Major Watson has shown a steady, stubborn courage that’s rare anywhere, and rarer still when your career and freedom are on the line. He didn’t hide behind technicalities or double-talk. He put everything on the line for the principles he swore to uphold.
We owe him our voices, for his sake and for our own. When the government turns its full weight against someone who takes his oath seriously, we can’t just wait for politicians or courts to fix it. It takes ordinary people, standing together, to demand fairness, shine a light into those cells, and make sure the people who tell the truth don’t have to stand alone.
I encourage everyone to show support for Major Watson by spreading the word about his courage and how he is being persecuted for standing up for truth. You can also help by sending letters of support to Major Watson while he is being confined to the following address:
Jason P. Watson
Calvert County Detention Center
P.O. Box 9
Barstow, MD 20610
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Pentagon Officials Reportedly Ready to 'Spill Their Guts' to Help Get Hegseth Impeached
"Through his arrogance, he’s made many former allies willing to work with Democrats to hold his feet to the fire for all the damage he’s done to our military."
Oct 21, 2026
With polls showing Democrats in good position to retake at least one chamber of the US Congress, several Pentagon insiders are reportedly lining up to offer up damaging information about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in hopes that a new Democratic majority will impeach him.
According to a report published Wednesday by The Telegraph, current and former officials at the US Department of Defense are prepared to "spill their guts" about Hegseth to Democratic congressional investigators, who have "already made contact with potential whistleblowers."
Unnamed sources told The Telegraph that Hegseth has committed a number of "costly blunders" during his tenure, while at the same making several enemies of career Pentagon officials.
“There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to very quietly go to the chair of the [US House Armed Services Committee]," one source said, "and are going to spill their guts, provide them with everything they can, and leak everything they can."
"It’ll be horrendous," the sources added. "It’ll be consistent embarrassment."
A second source described as a former senior Trump administration official outlined "huge problems" Hegseth faces from Pentagon officials eager to see him ousted.
"Through his arrogance," the source said, "he’s made many former allies willing to work with Democrats to hold his feet to the fire for all the damage he’s done to our military."
A third source described a wide range of motives for the Pentagon insiders who are willing to come forward, ranging from officials who simply dislike Hegseth to others who believe he's a "threat to national security."
Investigators have already identified several lines of inquiry into Hegseth's tenure, including his mishandling of classified information, his conduct during President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, and his bombing spree of purported drug trafficking vessels that many legal experts consider acts of murder.
The Telegraph's sources acknowledged it would be difficult to convict Hegseth in the US Senate in the event that he's impeached by the House of Representatives, but there is hope that a relentless stream of damaging revelations could push Trump to fire him.
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6 Strategies Progressives Can Use to Win in November
Here are some suggestions that can be implemented quickly in the remaining three and a half weeks before Election Day, November 3.
Oct 11, 2026
Ever wonder why, more often than not, progressive candidates for public office lose to the most venal, corrupt, right-wing politicians? It is not just that progressives don’t have enough money. Too often, they run cookie-cutter campaigns—tediously monotone, without exciting and compelling activities. They also fail to draw a vivid contrast between their records and commitments to the public and those of Republican corporatists. Here are some suggestions that can be implemented quickly in the remaining three and a half weeks before Election Day, November 3.
1. The GOP is the Party of NO, NO, NO. As the party of big corporations, it has repeatedly resisted efforts to protect the public from corporate abuses. In the 19th century it opposed regulation of the railroads and the banks, resisted the organization of unions and women’s suffrage. In the 20th century, Republicans opposed the progressive agenda of Franklin Delano Roosevelt—among them were Social Security, the minimum wage, and unemployment compensation—and, in the 60s and 70s, the GOP fought to weaken or stop consumer, worker safety, and environmental health protections that have saved millions of lives.
Under President Donald Trump, the Republicans have gone crazy, leaving people unprotected and defenseless against the corporate crooks, the avaricious health insurers, the deadly polluters, and the freeloading corporate welfare kings. Trump has eradicated or starved the agencies protecting you as consumers and eliminated or weakened consumer regulations and the agencies responsible for enforcing them, including protections involving auto safety, fuel efficiency, and vehicle emissions, for example.
Bad as the past GOP has been, it would be much worse for people here and abroad in the next two years of Tyrant, Greedy, Violent, Cruel, Corrupt Trump who repeatedly breaks the law.
How can these GOP candidates deserve your votes? All people bleed the same color in red and blue states. Trump’s Republicans drove Congress in 2025 to weaken Medicaid and Medicare and increase the cost of coverage under Obamacare, leaving millions of families, including children, losing health coverage at an accelerating rate into 2027. Similarly, millions of people are being pushed off food assistance programs.
2. Bad as the past GOP has been, it would be much worse for people here and abroad in the next two years of Tyrant, Greedy, Violent, Cruel, Corrupt Trump who repeatedly breaks the law. A new Congress must stop him, by impeaching and convicting Trump and telling him, “You’re fired.” (His favorite bullying words inflicted on millions of innocents.)
3. Gather your policies into a pledge or compact for the voters, reflecting common left-right values of your citizenry that are opposed by your opponent. (See Ky. Values vs. McConnell published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, 2014). The core “kitchen table” issues are raising the minimum wage, now at the frozen federal $7.25 per hour; instituting an authentic child tax credit; increasing Social Security benefits, frozen since 1971, paid for by raising the income cap for Social Security taxes on the wealthy; cracking down on corporate crooks who exploit workers and consumers; and ending the tax escapes of the plutocrats and big corporations, so that the revenues can return to communities to fund better public services and infrastructure. (See Robert Reich’s 10-Point Plan to Make America Affordable and my Compact for American Workers). You may wish to add the looting of private pensions (see pensionrights.org) and the latest Trump restriction on 40 million student loan debtors.
4. Show how much you care for workers by midnight campaigning to reach the many midnight shift workers who rightly feel excluded from electoral campaigns. Hospital, nursing home, factory, fire, police, EMT, all-night stores, and guard workers among them, should be listed in your news release thanking them and announcing your campaign stops.
5. Trump’s dictatorship has left our country unprepared for pandemics, climate catastrophes, and the AI Frankensteins. He ignorantly calls warnings of perils on the horizon “hoaxes,” while he undermines and suppresses solar and wind energy in favor of the homicidal oil, gas, and coal companies. So, challenge your opponent to defend or disavow these failures of presidential responsibility. Any candidate who tolerates Trump’s dangerous abdications of presidential duties, along with his crazed statements about not “caring for Americans’ financial conditions,” urging Republicans to “cheat like hell” regarding the elections, and saying in January, “There shouldn’t be elections in November” certainly does not belong in Congress.
6. Call out the GOP for throwing millions of families off Medicaid, Obamacare, and Medicare through various mechanisms and press for Medicare For All, as Canada, Western Europe, and Taiwan have had for many years. A recent Yale School of Public Health study found a “single-payer universal healthcare system could cover every American, save more than 113,000 lives a year, and still cost over $1 trillion less than the system it would replace.”
For more ready-to-use, winning get-out-your-vote ideas, see what 24 civic leaders are proposing in their winningamerica.net presentations. If you have any further questions, you may wish to contact them directly about their articulate nonpartisan mission of advancing justice for all.
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Impeachment Calls Grow as Dems Say Up to $20 Million in Taxpayer Funds Were Used for 'Illegal' Pro-Trump Ads
"We should not have to remind you that using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars."
Sep 29, 2026
As critics condemn President Donald Trump's trio of taxpayer-funded advertisements as illegal propaganda and "an impeachable offense," The Wall Street Journal and leading congressional Democrats revealed Tuesday that the administration appears to have used US Department of Homeland Security funding to pay for the ads.
Citing unnamed sources, the Journal reported that "Trump personally pushed for the ads and has been involved in their creation," and that the money came from US Customs and Border Protection, an agency of DHS. Top Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives said the administration apparently used CBP funding allocated in Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Homeland Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the "outrageous scheme" of using "Americans' hard-earned tax dollars to bankroll the obscene political ads celebrating President Trump."
The pair noted that on September 19, the Office of Management and Budget approved a release of money to CBP, including "$20 million in new funding under the line item 'Commemorative Events,' which we suspect may well be the funding tapped to run this government propaganda."
"We should not have to remind you that using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars," they told Mullin, a former senator who voted for the GOP's 2025 budget package.
Specifically, as the watchdog Public Citizen detailed in a Tuesday complaint to the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and broadcasters, the three campaign ads "appear to violate the federal law against using taxpayer funds to finance propaganda (5 USC §3107) and related provisions of the appropriations laws as well as the Hatch Act (5 USC §7324)."
Margaret Dylus-Yukins, senior legal counsel for ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, highlighted on Monday that the unlawful ads come on top of the war chest that Trump has raised—mostly from rich people and corporations—since the last election for the super political action committee (PAC) MAGA Inc.
"At a minimum, this is an appalling abuse of taxpayer dollars, particularly when hundreds of millions of private dollars are already flowing into US elections—and Trump has personally helped raise enormous sums from wealthy special interests for a super PAC devoted to advancing his political agenda," Dylus-Yukins said.
Axios on Tuesday corroborated the Journal's reporting that "Trump is personally selecting which government-funded ads his administration is airing ahead of the midterms," and one unnamed official claimed that "this is just the beginning."
With the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress just five weeks away, the administration has claimed the ads are "public service announcements." Murray and Murphy called that defense "as absurd as it is offensive," and pointed out that "the White House has failed to answer our most basic questions about where these funds coming from and who is responsible."
"The American people deserve answers about how this president is literally stealing their tax dollars to air campaign ads celebrating himself—while doing nothing to help them afford healthcare or housing. These ads need to immediately come off the air, taxpayers need to be paid back for this theft, and everyone responsible needs to be held accountable for this corrupt and illegal propaganda," the senators argued, demanding answers to a list of questions within 48 hours.
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee Ranking Member Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) also spoke out Tuesday, saying that "after gutting $1 trillion from Medicaid, stripping healthcare coverage from millions of Americans, giving the very richest Americans and large corporations massive tax breaks, adding more than $4 trillion to the deficit, and more than quadrupling funding for mass deportations, it turns out the Trump administration used Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill to pay for President Trump’s political ads."
"When Democrats reclaim control of Congress next year, the House Appropriations Committee will work to uncover and reverse misuses of taxpayer money like this and hold those who abused their power accountable," that pair pledged.
With Trump's approval rating dropping—largely due to poor economic conditions exacerbated by his illegal Iran War—Republicans are increasingly at risk of losing their current majorities in one or both chambers. In the House, that would likely mean not only DeLauro chairing the Appropriations Committee, but also Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.) Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) respectively leading the Oversight, Intelligence, and Judiciary committees.
"For two years, Trump and his family have run the presidency like a family business, getting richer by the billions while Republicans in Congress held the door open," Congressional Integrity Project senior adviser Jeremy Funk said in a Tuesday statement.
Pointing to "Gulf money" for Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, "Pentagon contracts" for Donald Trump Jr., the first family's lucrative cryptocurrency schemes, and "now taxpayer-funded ads starring Trump himself," Funk charged that "every one of these rackets depended on a Republican Congress that refused to ask a single question."
"That era ends in January," he declared. "Jim Himes, Robert Garcia, and Jamie Raskin, and every other Democratic committee chair, has the receipts, and soon they'll have the gavels and subpoena power. Trump's cronies are already lawyering up. They should be. Accountability is coming for all of them."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who could become speaker if Democrats reclaim the chamber, made clear in an interview with The Associated Press published on Saturday that "we are going to hold the crooks accountable," and "we haven’t ruled anything out," including impeachment.
While some elected Democrats and political commentators have argued that impeaching Trump a historic third time wouldn't be a good use of the party's time—particularly as the Senate acquitted him in both of the previous cases—Jeffries' comments came just days after Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who is retiring after this term, introduced over two dozen more articles of impeachment against the president.
Meanwhile, Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, told The New York Times on Sunday that the use of federal funds for the ads could be "an impeachable offense."
"This is very dangerous," Painter said. "We do not allow government-sponsored propaganda in the United States."
This article has been updated with reporting from Axios.
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If Democrats Win Control of Congress in the Midterms, Will They Impeach Trump a Third Time?
"It's about setting a standard, and the Democrats can impeach, to uphold constitutional values, and at the same time, have a first-hundred-day agenda that deals with the cost of living," said Rep. Ro Khanna.
Sep 27, 2026
With the US midterm elections less than six weeks away and Republicans' congressional majorities at risk, both GOP leaders and Democrats are discussing the possibility that a Democratic-controlled Congress could impeach President Donald Trump a historic third time.
"They say they’re not going to, but we know they will—they'll do a third impeachment of President Trump," House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said of Democrats during a Sunday radio interview. "But that's just part of it. They're going to investigate the first family, they're going to investigate Cabinet secretaries."
In fact, Democratic leaders are not denying another potential impeachment effort targeting someone who has been condemned by a range of critics as "the most openly corrupt president in American history."
During an interview with The Associated Press published on Saturday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who could become speaker if Democrats reclaim the lower chamber, signaled that impeachment is on the table—and not just for Trump.
"We haven't ruled anything out... and we haven't ruled anything in," he said. "If folks have been stealing from the American people, shortchanging the American people, or screwing over the American people... we are going to hold the crooks accountable."
Jeffries and other Democrats "are preparing a vast oversight agenda" that is "as robust as it is daunting, spanning several House committees," the AP reported. "With majority power comes bigger budgets and staff, and the ability to investigate, subpoena, and potentially course-correct what the Democrats say are widespread corruption and abuses of power."
Annual financial disclosures released this summer show that Trump pocketed at least $2.2 billion—over half of it from his family’s cryptocurrency grift—during his first year back in office, and his stock trades since then have continued to generate alarm.
Trump's deployment of federal immigration agents to various US communities to abuse the rights of US citizens and immigrants alike as well as his illegal war on Iran—with its the resulting affordability crisis—have also fueled calls for impeachment.
Responding to suggestions from some that another impeachment wouldn't be a good use of Democrats' time, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a potential 2028 presidential candidate, said during a Sunday appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that "it's not about Donald Trump," who will be a lame duck and "increasingly irrelevant."
"The point is to stand up for the Constitution," Khanna explained. "Impeachment says that you can't get into an illegal war in Iran without constitutional approval. Impeachment says that you can't just start firing federal employees... in defiance of what Congress says. Impeachment says you can't do deals with foreign governments to allegedly enrich your own family."
"It's about setting a standard, and the Democrats can impeach, to uphold constitutional values, and at the same time, have a first-hundred-day agenda that deals with the cost of living," he added, pointing to issues such as free childcare, raising the minimum wage, and taxing billionaires. "We can do both."
Democrats have unveiled various articles of impeachment against Trump since his return to the White House last year. On Thursday, Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who is retiring after this term, introduced 26 more, including for alleged abuses of power, violations of his oath of office, and corrupt use of the pardon authority.
"Trump is clearly the most impeachable president our country has ever endured," said Cohen, a member of the House Judiciary Committee. "His continued presence in office is a danger to our democracy. That the sycophantic Republican majority in Congress is derelict in its duty does not mean that I must abandon my responsibilities."
Cohen stressed that "I took an independent oath to support and defend the Constitution. That commitment compels me to introduce this resolution today. When historians write about this period, and our constituents ask who stood up to President Trump's lawlessness, this resolution is the answer."
The House initially impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019. After his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he became the first president to be impeached twice. However, the Senate acquitted him in both cases.
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What Do We Do About Trump? Remove Him!
No Kings is an historical descriptive designed to engage our intellect, but it asks nothing. It demands nothing. It, like media editorials, sounds an alarm but an alarm is endless without a call. What’s missing is a bold call for removal.
Sep 26, 2026
We’re nearly two years into President Donald Trump’s second term in office—his first where his fascist dreams took flight—and I’m not the only one to notice. Millions of people in groups as large as city blocks, and as tiny as a corner in a village without a traffic light, have gathered to protest under the banner, No Kings.
Its success was in bringing together disparate groups of people. At some I had the impression that out of thousands of people, no two had a similar political orientation. That’s the good part. It’s also a weakness.
At the same time, and now with increasing regularity, respected media (from The New York Times down to those that take their lead from it) editorialize in stark terms against the administration. Editorials read like a list of grievances, not unlike the Declaration of Independence. But unlike the Declaration, they lack a political message.
Fascism is not a throwaway word. Trump told people he was returning the nation to its “rightful place,” and pretty soon hastily organized federal police ganged up on people and shot them in the streets.
No Kings is an historical descriptive designed to engage our intellect, but it asks nothing. It demands nothing. It, like media editorials, sounds an alarm but an alarm is endless without a call. What’s missing is a bold call for removal. Remove him!
By what mechanism? Do I mean by impeachment? No, I do not. Do I mean by the 25th Amendment? No, I do not. Do I mean by the Democratic Party? No, I do not.
It is not up to those that call for removal to state or provide a mechanism. The call signifies itself. If the causes are alarming enough—and I suggest we are presently living under a fascist regime—there is nothing left to be done but what was once done.
The Declaration of Independence keenly notes that people “are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Before enumerating the greatness of the causes for separation, the Declaration expresses a sentiment that Washington’s gatekeepers would have us forget: that it is the right and the duty of the people to throw off such government as is reducing them to despotism.
The gulf must be acknowledged between what the leaders of a country in 1776 declared and did, and what, not the leaders, but the followers of a country in 2026 are prepared and able to do. The situations cannot be compared, but they can be instructive.
The Declaration is a radical document. It did not wait for the government of the mother country to have a change of heart, as we wait for the midterm elections. Suffering what we must.
What is our cause for alarm? And should it mark the time for a call for removal? Even if it only articulates what we want?
Fascism is not a throwaway word. Trump told people he was returning the nation to its “rightful place,” and pretty soon hastily organized federal police ganged up on people and shot them in the streets. They’re coming for people. They may not have come yet for you and me.
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'Love It': Trump Reflects on Why the Democrats Won't Put Up a Fight
'They do nothing. That’s normalizing me before the American people. How wonderful.”
Sep 19, 2026
“I was in the Oval Office when I got a call with the results of the September 15th House Impeachment vote. Unbelievable. Of course, my Repubs all voted against this persecution, but 47 of the Dems, including their leaders—Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and Richard Neal from Democratic Massachusetts—voted PRESENT! That is really a vote against Impeachment and makes them ON MY SIDE! My aide read their lame excuse, saying that ‘serious work’ had to be done, including ‘comprehensive investigations, reviews of thousands of documents … Congressional hearings, sustained public organizing … to build a broad national consensus.’ That’s why they voted PRESENT!”
“But they were really AWOL. The polls show well over a majority of people want me FIRED. The Dems are really cowards. All they had to do was to use my scores of Executive Orders, which they claim were illegal and unconstitutional. Plus, repeat my widely reported statements that I can do whatever I want as President and what they have condemned as my outlaw actions here and abroad. I’m the only evidence they need.”
“Look at crazy Nancy. She impeached me twice, once on the Hunter Biden fabrication and once on the January 6 peaceful demonstration. Now she refuses to vote for Impeachment for the far wilder and more destructive things she has accused me of doing daily. Go figure.”
“Am I just lucky, or are they afraid of my going after them by name? Fear is a coward’s fuel, someone once told me.”
“Thankfully captive to their corporate consultants—look all I’ve done for their corporate clients—cut taxes, cut regulation, subsidized them—the Dems are helpless. They’ve let me normalize me in every way. They look at how I MAGA every day, call them traitors and lunatics and fanatics, demand the execution of six senators, and they say, ‘There he goes again.’ Then they do nothing. That’s normalizing me before the American people. How wonderful.”
“They are sooo out of it. They have no slogans, unless you are stupid enough to think ‘Build Back Better’ does anything other than bring us more of Sleepy Joe. They have no nicknames to counter my torrent of nicknames, even though my name lends itself to many.”
“Examples: I said, ‘Drain the Swamp.’ They could have said, unfairly, ‘Close the Trump Dump.’ I expected them to call me ‘Dictator Donald,’ ‘Trump the Chump,’ ‘Tyrant Trump,’ ‘The Trump Pump’ (because of gas prices), ‘The Trump Sump’ (their nutty charges of de-regulated air pollution) or ‘Dangerous Donald.’ Or, taking off from my naming things after me, have you heard words like Hurricane Trump, Tornado Trump, or Trump’s Dark Ages? We’ve laid off firefighters. But no giant wildfire has yet been given my name.”
“What really stuns me is how they have normalized what they call my greed. I had to disclose my finances for 2025 when I made $2.2 billion working out of my Trump House position. Again, a few words of rage, but no Dems broke it down to $1.1 million an hour, over a 40-hour week, as I proudly keep the federal minimum wage at $7.25 per hour for our business friends. ‘Billions’ go in one ear and out the other. But $1.1 million an hour hits home! They blew it again.”
“To my praise of our brave, lethal soldiers, the Dems could have regularly called me a serial draft dodger during the Vietnam War. Silence. They do once in a while call me a ‘convicted felon,’ but it’s a throwaway line. Then they vote in Congress for an even bigger unaudited Pentagon budget.”
“In an anger fit, I threaten to bomb like hell our ally Oman; they call me ‘frustrated’ over the war with Iran. How kind of them.”
“I pardoned over 600 violent convicted criminals over January 6. Over a hundred of them have already committed serious crimes since their release from jail. The Dems just say I’m abusing my pardon powers. Don’t they remember what damage the first Bush’s campaign did to Dukakis in 1988, blaming him for the crime Willie Horton committed after his early release from jail?”
“Am I just lucky, or are they afraid of my going after them by name? Fear is a coward’s fuel, someone once told me.”
“I campaigned on making the US dollar stronger than ever. Now it is weaker than in many years against other currencies. From the Democrats—silence.”
“I call them socialists and communists. They don’t call me fascist—just authoritarian. How feeble can you get? Such people are often called ‘useful idiots’”
“I call global warming and possible AI extinction ‘hoaxes,’ along with labeling wind power and solar energy ‘scams.’ ‘There he goes again,’ is the shoulder-shrugging reaction. Love it.”
“Were I a churchgoer, I would thank Almighty GOD for blessing me. With such enemies, who needs friends?”
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