Impeachment articles introduced against Pete Hegseth

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Also, some breaking news. Articles [music] of impeachment introduced in Congress against none other than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The allegations, abuse of power, politicization of the armed forces, and obstruction of congressional oversight. So, let's talk about it. CBS News congressional reporter Torrian Small. Torrian, let's get right to these articles of impeachment. The who, what, where, when, and why. Who's behind this and what's the why?

[00:00:25]Yeah, Representative Jasmine Ansari from Arizona. She's putting forth this after telegraphing it earlier in the week that this is the direction that she's going.

[00:00:35]In these articles of impeachment, there are about six articles here. It's for unauthorized war use against Iran and reckless endangerment of the United States service members, violations of the law of armed conflict in targeting civilians, negligence and recklessness handling or reckless handling of sensitive military information, obstruction of Congress and oversight, abuse of power, politicization of the armed forces, and conduct bringing disrepute upon the United States and its armed services. I I do want to point out though that the likelihood that this goes anywhere is pretty low, especially considering this is a member of the minority party who it's unclear if she got backing or the support from Democratic leadership before moving forward with this. On top of that, the threshold for articles or impeaching a cabinet member is pretty high considering it would have to go through the Senate even if all Democrats were to support this measure and a handful of Republicans needed to pass it through a simple majority of the house for it to actually stick. But, I also got to point out the parallel here between what we saw in the last administration when Republicans looked to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. While it did just narrowly pass out of the house, he was impeached after unsuccessfully being impeached.

[00:02:02]Their first effort, it ultimately was dismissed by the Senate even though Senate the majority in the Senate were Republicans at that time. Okay, this begs the question relative to the articles of impeachment. So, right now as you point out, minority party doesn't look like this could have a lot of legs going forward. But, what happens if the Democrats take Congress after the midterms? Could this be a bellwether of a plan by Democrats to maybe pursue impeachment again against Mr. Hegseth and other members of the Trump administration?

[00:02:33]Sure, it depends on where Democrats want to expend their political capital.

[00:02:37]Assuming that it's best case scenario for them after the midterms, they win both the house and Senate. Again, the threshold in the Senate for this to actually stick would be pretty high. It would require 2/3 majority there. So, there's just no pathway for it that actually being substantive. And then also, it could be pretty divisive when they're looking to regroup for 2028. So, I think what we could see is an effort to reintroduce these articles of impeachment. But, whether or not it will have broad Democratic support in the new membership there assuming that Democrats turn the tide and win in November would still mean that the likelihood for Hegseth to be impeached and then removed is still very low, Reed. Okay, now let's move on to what has been a roller coaster of a ride in Congress relative to a couple of representatives.

[00:03:30]Of course, we know California Democrat Eric Swalwell and Texas Republican Tony Gonzales. They resigned from Congress.

[00:03:36]So, what does this mean as we look at the balance of power going into the midterms?

[00:03:41]Yeah, Reed, four vacant seats right now because of this and potentially two more bringing that up to six considering that there are still lawmakers looking at an expulsion resolution for the two Florida members and Sheila McCormick, Democrat, and Cory Mills, a Republican. Obviously, those are different reasons from what we saw for the ousters of Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell this week. Mills is also accused of sexual misconduct, but also accepting weapons deals while in office.

[00:04:17]McCormick was convicted by a House Ethics Committee investigation of money laundering as she's also undergoing a criminal investigation. So, it's a a different, but also similar in many ways calls from lawmakers, bipartisan group of lawmakers that are looking to remove what they're seeing as this growing uh number of lawmakers who are just not fit to serve or continue out their terms. They're also still calling on them to resign.

[00:04:47]They It's very rare that a lawmaker is expelled from Congress. The last time we saw that was George Santos. So, we'll see what happens if this pressure campaign would also move them to resign from their seats. But, as of now, both are maintaining that they're looking to stick it out at least through this election. Torrian Small with political storms on Capitol Hill. Thank you so much.