An effort to impeach US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of waging war on Iran without congressional authorisation, has failed on Capitol Hill.
A majority of the House of Representatives voted to refer impeachment articles to a committee – essentially killing the effort introduced by dissident Republican congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
During an earlier briefing, Hegseth called the impeachment effort a “farce” and “sabotage”.
The bid to find the cabinet secretary guilty of misconduct and ultimately remove him from office was seen as a long shot as it could have required a number of other Republicans to defy President Donald Trump.
That calculation might change in January, when the opposition Democratic Party assumes control of both chambers of Congress, following its successes in the US midterm elections. For now, Trump’s Republican Party remains in control.
After Tuesday’s vote, the most senior Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said: “This is not the end of it. It’s just the beginning.”
The question on which lawmakers were voting on Tuesday was whether or not to refer the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, which is led by Republicans. The alternative would have been to allow the resolution to proceed in the House itself.
All Republicans other than Massie voted to refer the resolution to the committee, meaning that the congressman’s effort failed in a 211-204 vote.
The move to send the measure to the panel effectively kills the effort, as there is only a short period of time left in this Congress.
More than a dozen members missed the ballot. They included 11 Democrats, several of whom blamed traffic issues for their absences.
Several members of the party criticised their fellow lawmakers for missing the vote.
“You should show up and do your job,” said Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed during an interview with CNN, making a direct address to those who did not vote. The Michigan lawmaker recently won a US Senate race in Michigan, having criticised US ties to Israel and the war in Iran on the campaign trail.
