House Democrats wanted Pete Hegseth impeached.
But when the decisive procedural vote hit the floor Tuesday evening, 11 Democrats were not there to cast a ballot.
Republicans sent the resolution to the Judiciary Committee by a razor-thin 211-204 vote, effectively stopping the impeachment push in the current Congress. Several of the missing Democrats now say traffic kept them from the chamber.
Thomas Massie had spelled out the stakes before members voted: referral was the maneuver that could bury his resolution before the House ever reached the eight articles themselves.
The numbers are not complicated.
The Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House records 210 Republicans and one independent voting to refer the resolution. Massie was the lone Republican voting against referral, joined by 203 Democrats.
Eighteen members did not vote at all. Eleven of them were Democrats.
If seven more Democrats had reached the floor and voted with their party, the motion would have ended in a 211-211 tie and failed. Instead, the gavel came down with the impeachment push headed to committee.
Rep. Jonathan Jackson of Illinois said he was on his way to oppose the referral when a traffic incident and police escort blocked access to the Capitol. He said he arrived moments after the vote closed.
Jackson was not the only member giving that explanation.
The Guardian reported that Rep. Melanie Stansbury’s office said she was blocked from entering the Capitol by a traffic incident and a police escort involving a bus. Rep. Laura Gillen similarly pointed to the same escort and said Republicans closed the vote before she could get inside.
The outlet also reported that Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries had not yet discussed the absences with his floor team when reporters asked him about the failure. He nevertheless signaled that Democrats intend to revive the fight.
Then came the detail guaranteed to make the excuses land even worse.
Some of the absent Democrats were returning from an Elect Democratic Women event held roughly 1.5 miles down Pennsylvania Avenue. Reporting from Capitol Hill placed them in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Independence Avenue.
That does not mean the traffic problem was invented. Washington motorcades and sudden street closures can turn a short trip into a mess.
It does mean House Democrats failed at the most basic part of their own impeachment strategy: getting their members into the chamber for the vote they said mattered.
The Associated Press reported that Massie’s resolution contained eight articles focused largely on military operations involving Iran, while also reaching actions in Yemen, Venezuela and the Caribbean. Hegseth rejected the case as a collection of policy disputes that did not meet the constitutional standard for impeachment.
President Trump stood behind Hegseth before the vote and celebrated the result afterward. Hegseth argued that the resolution treated successful military operations as impeachable conduct and would undermine American forces in real time.
The political fight is not over. Democrats are set to take control of Congress in January, and their leaders have already suggested that Hegseth will face another attempt.
But this round ended with an astonishing image: Democrats had the issue, the warning and the votes within reach — and too many of them were somewhere other than the House floor.
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[ H/T WLT Report ]
