Debunking Pete Hegseth’s Bullshit Impeachment Defense

On the eve of a House impeachment vote, self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made a rare appearance before the Pentagon press corps. Over half an hour, he declared every military operation he has overseen “lawful” and claims of civilian harm “slander.” He said the Iran war was a great victory and only 18 Americans have died in the conflict. He also claimed that the effort to impeach him was a stunt by just “one disgruntled congressman.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment on the House floor Monday afternoon, charging Hegseth with “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Democrats are overwhelmingly expected to join Massie’s effort following their midterm election landslide. “I am a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the presumed next House speaker.

Massie wrote on X that if his impeachment resolution advances Tuesday evening, he will request a separate vote on each of the eight articles. “I’ve heard from several members they agree with some of the Articles of Impeachment but not all of them,” Massie wrote. “If the motion to kill my resolution by referring it to committee fails, and we proceed to the Articles themselves, I’ll request a vote on each of the Articles separately.”

As Hegseth steels himself for a vote that could see him put on trial in the Senate and sink his chances of serving for the rest of Trump’s term, The Intercept is dissecting his self-defense and examining Hegseth’s false claims about his disastrous war-making.

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“Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen — every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress, and executed by American warriors who did their jobs.”

Experts in the laws of war, a Pentagon official, and members of Congress from both parties say Hegseth’s boat strikes against “cartels,” which have now killed upward of 240 people, are illegal extrajudicial killings. The military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence.

Sarah Harrison, who previously advised Pentagon policymakers on issues related to human rights and the law of war, said that the attack on Venezuela was also a clear violation of international law and that the administration’s justifications for the raid were baseless.

Of the Iran war, Air Force Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham, a former chief of international law at U.S. Central Command, said the opening strike “clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution,” which requires the president to seek congressional approval to start a war in most cases. Harrison Mann, a former U.S. Army officer and intelligence official and now the associate director for campaigns and policy at Win Without War, drew specific attention to the attacks on the bridges and water reservoirs in Iran. It is “quite dangerous to be conditioning the U.S. military to carry out orders that are clearly war crimes,” he warned.

Hegseth’s claims about notifications are also spurious. Congress never authorized the Iran war, and a call to the congressional “Gang of Eight” the night before is not the formal report experts say the law requires. Following the January attack on Venezuela, Republicans privately complained they were not told in advance.

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“As to the claim that the American military targets civilians, well, that is a lie and that is a slander against every professional who flew, sailed, and fought on these missions. The only people who target civilians are the terrorists that we hunt.”

The U.S. boat strike campaign has only targeted civilians. The summary executions of more than 240 people are a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement agencies detained suspected drug smugglers and brought them to trial on criminal charges.

A U.S. military investigation also found U.S. forces attacked an elementary school in Minab, Iran, killing more than 150 people, most of them children. One official called it “colossal negligence.”

For months, Central Command has failed to answer questions about additional civilian casualties, including eight members of a family — the youngest, a 20-day-old infant — killed in an attack documented in an Intercept investigation.

These attacks came after Hegseth conducted a comprehensive campaign to undermine efforts to prevent and mitigate civilian harm. The Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, for example, slashed its staff from 40 personnel in January 2025 to just nine by the end of the year, according to the report.

“More than 70 narco vessels sunk. 218 narco-terrorists dead where they should be. Maritime smuggling down at least 65 percent and dropping even further.”

Hegseth misstates the toll of his own boat strike campaign. The Intercept’s tracker counts 72 strikes and at least 243 dead. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., after reviewing classified material, wrote that the evidence suggests the military killed people not involved in drug trafficking. A top Pentagon Joint Staff official told lawmakers in a classified briefing that victims of human trafficking could be among the dead of the first strike.

The drug claims fare no better. Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire, for example, offered completely different numbers to Congress, telling the House Armed Services Committee in March that there “has been a 20 percent reduction of movements of drug vessels in the Caribbean and an additional 25 percent reduction in the Eastern Pacific.”

The Pentagon’s latest civilian casualty report, meanwhile, claims no civilians were killed in the boat strikes. One U.S. official said it had “absolutely no credibility.”

Iran Was a “Historic Military Victory” “By every measure, we achieved a historic military victory. Under 40 days of sustained combat…”

The Iran war, by all objective measures, is an abject failure. The conflict undermined the decades-old U.S. security framework, as well as America’s archipelago of bases, in the Middle East. Iran determined how to overwhelm U.S. air defenses, offering up a playbook for U.S. adversaries around the world. This, in turn, damaged U.S. military security across the globe. From Jordan to Kuwait to the United Kingdom, U.S. outposts are now increasingly vulnerable to attack. As a result, the Iran war has left the military on the brink of a “breakdown.”

The Trump administration’s attempt to rebrand its faltering forever war hasn’t slowed the mounting toll of U.S. casualties, either. While Hegseth focused on the conflict’s first 40 days, the U.S. has suffered more casualties as a result of the conflict since the war formally ended and, in July, underwent a name change to “Overseas Operations.”

Voters did not see a victory either: About 6 in 10 told The Associated Press the war was the wrong decision, and Vice President JD Vance agreed, writing of the GOP’s crushing defeat in last week’s midterms: “The reason we lost is the war.”

“Eighteen Americans have given their lives in Operation Epic Fury.”

Hegseth spent his rare press conference using the troops under his leadership as a shield, claiming that indictments of him were actually indictments of them. When not using them for cover, Hegseth praised them. “They are the best of our nation. Like the president, I will defend them with every fiber of my being every single day,” he crowed.

What he didn’t care enough to do was offer an accurate count of the war’s toll. The official Pentagon count of deaths during Epic Fury is 15, not 18 — but that’s misdirection at best and a lie at worst. At least 23 military personnel have died in Operation Epic Fury and “Overseas Operations,” the new moniker for the war introduced in July, according to the Pentagon’s official count. (This includes 11 killed by hostile fire.) The actual number of troop deaths in the region since the war began is higher.

“This is one disgruntled guy who drew up some really flimsy articles.”

In Hegseth’s telling, Massie is pursuing his impeachment out of resentment over the loss of his Kentucky congressional seat to Trump-backed far-right candidate Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL. But Massie’s impeachment effort has strong bipartisan support. The entire House Democratic caucus is widely expected to vote in favor of the impeachment effort. While no House Republicans aside from Massie have openly committed to voting yes, the outgoing congressman said Monday that he believes “several” Republicans will vote for the measure.

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz agreed. So did Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., one of the leading voices for Hegseth’s impeachment. “I think there’s a high chance that it will be successful,” she told The Intercept of Massie’s effort. In April, Ansari filed six articles of impeachment against Hegseth, including violations of the law of armed conflict and targeting of civilians, abuse of power, and obstructing congressional oversight.

Discontent with Hegseth is widespread within the military establishment as well. The Intercept recently spoke with six current and former defense officials who said Hegseth had undermined the rule of law; irreparably harmed the U.S. military through purges of top commanders; spurred religious extremism; and diminished the department he leads due to an almost endless raft of scandals and culture-war clownishness. In fact, 64 percent of active-duty service members, veterans, and military families disapprove of Hegseth, according to a recent poll conducted by Common Defense, a grassroots veterans organization.

The American people, writ large, appear to agree with Ansari, Massie, the U.S. officials, and those in the military’s orbit. Just 32 percent of voters approve of the way Hegseth is handling his job, while 57 percent disapprove, according to a Quinnipiac University poll in September.

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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.

We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.

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