After 150 years, is a war finally reason enough to impeach a war chief?
In 1876 the House impeached a Secretary of War over side payments. In 2026, the charge is the war itself.
On Monday, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, filed eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Three of them accuse him of waging war on Iran without the approval of Congress. A House vote could come this week, and by one count as few as three Republican defections or absences would send the charges to the Senate.
Only two cabinet secretaries have ever been impeached. In 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was charged with "basely prostituting his high office" for private gain, after collecting more than $20,000 in regular side payments. He resigned minutes before the House voted; the House impeached him anyway, and the Senate acquitted him when every article fell short of two-thirds. In 2024, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached over the border, and the Senate dismissed the charges. Graft and border policy. Never a war.
Now the war. U.S. strikes on Iran began on February 28. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 gives a president 60 days to end hostilities Congress has not approved. As that deadline arrived on May 1, the White House sent Congress a letter saying the hostilities "have terminated." In June, the House voted 215 to 208 telling the president to get authorization before continuing. On July 10, the administration notified Congress that military action had formally restarted. Congress has not declared war on anyone since June 4, 1942.
So here is the gap. The first strikes were 255 days ago. The law's clock is 60.
We have a 150-year-old precedent for impeaching a war secretary over money, and we treat an unauthorized war as a calendar problem. Graft offends us because it is personal and easy to picture. A war run on executive say-so, with a bombed girls' school near its start, somehow registers as policy. Hegseth calls these "sham articles of impeachment." Maybe the votes will agree. But the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, and Congress keeps acting as if it belongs to whoever has the weapons.