Democrats need a scalp. And that scalp is almost surely going to belong to War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Impeaching President Donald Trump for the third time holds far too many political risks with no corresponding upside. Another prosecution of the president in the year of “affordability” would only make Democrats look distracted by petty partisan politics and personal vendettas, rousing anger among independents.
Hegseth? His impeachment would satiate some partisan bloodlust without ticking off independents. Most polling finds Hegseth is the least popular member of Trump’s Cabinet. It’s no more complicated than that.
This is why House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is a “hard yes” on impeaching Hegseth in 2027, describing him as one of the most incompetent and unqualified defense secretaries in history.
But Jeffries has apparently forgotten that Lloyd Austin, President Joe Biden’s highly qualified defense secretary, would not only disappear for weeks at a time without informing Congress — or anyone noticing — but also oversee the chaotic and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which a suicide bomber murdered 13 American service members. Jeffries publicly defended Austin after his disappearances, in case you think the impeachment effort is anything but partisan.
Though I’m skeptical Hegseth was the best person for the job, he has proven a lot more capable than Austin. Whether you supported it or not, the initial military phase of the Iran war was extraordinarily successful, one of the most dominant military displays of precision and power in our history. Within days, the United States, with the help of Israel, had control of Iranian airspace, decapitated Iranian leadership, destroyed the Iranian navy, and severely degraded the terrorist state’s ability to conduct regional warfare. And it was all done with very few casualties.
The war’s fits and starts and failed negotiations were all political decisions.
Then there was Operation Absolute Resolve, in which special forces bypassed Venezuelan air defenses and ground forces, captured communist dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife in around two and a half hours, and transported them to New York City to face drug-trafficking indictments.
Hegseth also cleansed the military of a lot of the trendy progressive cultural quackery that sprouted up in the woke era (and perhaps will resprout soon enough). Meanwhile, all five active-duty branches exceeded enrollment targets last year.
But even if Jeffries was right about Hegseth’s aptitude for the job, incompetence isn’t a “high crime or misdemeanor.”
Congress, of course, can impeach anyone it likes for any reason it conjures up — or, for that matter, for no good reason at all. In his failed article of impeachment this week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a crank, accused the secretary of war of contravening the War Powers Resolution. This is almost surely going to be one of the indictments used by Democrats as well.
Perhaps Massie is unaware that the president of the United States, not his Cabinet, is charged with obtaining consent from Congress for war. If contravening war powers were an impeachable offense, defense secretaries under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama should have been impeached as well. There is certainly a far better case for impeaching presidents who ignore the Constitution than for impeaching Cabinet members.
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And this is almost always the case. House Republicans’ impeachment of Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, for example, was based on his “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law,” which is substantively true. But Mayorkas was merely following the policy decisions of the duly elected president. The impeachment of a Cabinet member changed nothing. Even if Mayorkas had been removed by the Senate, nothing would have changed.
Impeachment has become political kabuki theater. All these performative impeachments really do is degrade another important constitutional process. You can dislike Hegseth. You can believe he’s terrible at his job. But he’s done nothing to deserve impeachment.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
