Massie Forces Lame-Duck House Showdown Over Impeaching Hegseth

Kentucky’s Rep. Thomas Massie is set to put Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s job before the full House this week, using the final weeks of his own term to revive an impeachment fight that Republican leaders dodged before the election.

The Northern Kentucky Republican, who lost his May primary and leaves Congress in January, was expected to give formal notice of his privileged impeachment resolution as lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday, Nov. 9, for the lame-duck session. Under House rules, a properly noticed privileged resolution must be taken up within two legislative days, which would push a vote to about midweek. Wednesday is Veterans Day.

Eight articles, filed in September

Massie first read his resolution on the House floor on Sept. 15. It contains eight articles centered on the war with Iran, according to the Congressional Record and published reports. The first article accuses Hegseth of waging war in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Other articles cite ignoring laws meant to limit civilian casualties, an “unlawful war” in Yemen, extrajudicial killings, suppression of free speech and the seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

That first push never reached a vote. GOP leaders canceled the House’s last scheduled voting day before the midterms and sent members home until Nov. 9. Speaker Mike Johnson called the effort “ridiculous” at the time.

Massie has said only one thing would stop the new attempt. “There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” he wrote on X on Nov. 4. A day later he called the measure a “much gentler version of what’s coming when Dems control Congress.”

Speaking to WHAS earlier, Massie described the case as “just an accumulation of things that he’s done that are illegal and unconstitutional and reach a level of impeachment.”

Hegseth and Trump push back

Hegseth answered in a video, calling his critic “a disgruntled, defeated congressman” who, with “his Democrat allies,” had “dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly.” President Donald Trump said last week he intends to keep Hegseth in the job, even as several Republicans, Vice President JD Vance among them, have tied the party’s midterm losses to the Iran war.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the expected next speaker, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he will support the resolution. “I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” Jeffries said. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.” He added that House Democrats would discuss it when their caucus meets Tuesday morning.

Why it matters: Kentucky analysis

This vote is a test of the outgoing Republican majority, not the incoming Democratic one. Democrats won both chambers on Nov. 3 but are not sworn in until Jan. 3, so any impeachment this month needs Republican defections on top of near-unanimous Democratic support. Impeachment takes a simple majority in the House, but removal requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and Congress has never removed a Cabinet officer through impeachment.

For Kentucky, the moment is a fitting close to Massie’s tenure. The 4th District congressman spent this fall pushing two fights his party’s leaders wanted to avoid: this resolution and a discharge petition on Epstein records that stood two signatures short of the 218 needed. Both now land in a lame-duck House where retiring and defeated members have little left to lose.

What to watch: whether Johnson’s team moves to table the resolution, how many Republicans vote with Massie, and whether the Senate would schedule a trial before the new Congress arrives.

Editor’s note: The Kacee Allen Network News Desk checked the resolution’s text in the Sept. 15, 2026, Congressional Record and confirmed this week’s timeline and quotes against reporting from ABC News, UPI, Roll Call, NBC News and WUKY. No interviews or phone calls were conducted for this story; the Kentucky analysis section is the Network’s own, drawn from those sourced facts.