Hegseth faces ‘harshest’ legal punishment as GOP lawmaker says he’s ‘breaking the law’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was already facing impeachment when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) bolstered the case with new evidence on Thursday.

Earlier this month, the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran collapsed after both sides exchanged fresh strikes. Trump notified Congress that “limited” military action had resumed, CNN reported.

That matters because of the War Powers Resolution — a 1973 law that prohibits the president from keeping troops in combat for more than 90 days without congressional approval. Massie and Democratic lawmakers say Congress never authorized this war.

The evidence that the war never really stopped came from an unlikely source: the Pentagon’s own casualty figures. On Wednesday, the Defense Department listed 18 American service members killed in the Iran war. By Thursday, that number had quietly dropped to 14.

According to New York Times reporter Aric Toler, the Pentagon said that the casualty figures had changed because “their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.”

Massie argued that the Pentagon’s move was evidence of Hegseth’s illegal activity.

“Let me explain this absurd ruse,” Massie wrote on X. “The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire. The reality: By going more than 90 days without congressional authorization, @SecWar IS BREAKING THE LAW and must be held accountable.”

Hegseth was already facing a war powers impeachment effort before Massie’s post. In April, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) and John Larson (D-CT) led a group of Democratic colleagues in filing six articles of impeachment against him.

The first article charges that Hegseth “willfully participated in and directed the initiation and escalation of armed hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran… without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization by the Congress.” It concludes: “Wherefore Peter B. Hegseth, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.”

If the House were to vote on those articles, Hegseth would face what CBS News described as “the chamber’s harshest constitutional punishment against a Cabinet secretary” — a step the House has taken only twice before in U.S. history.