Thomas Massie gave notice on the House floor on 15 September 2026 that he will force a vote on impeaching Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the first Republican to move against a member of Trump's cabinet.

Massie invoked clause 2 of Rule IX, which makes the resolution privileged and obliges the House to dispose of it within two legislative days. Republican leaders can move to table it, the route the chamber has taken with every impeachment resolution brought this way in this Congress.

Eight articles charge Hegseth with continuing hostilities against Iran in defiance of war powers resolutions the House passed in June and July, directing military action in Venezuela and Yemen without congressional authorisation, and authorising the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, Axios reported. Massie read the resolution into the record from the floor on Tuesday afternoon.

Massie said Hegseth's conduct had "frustrated Congress's ability to exercise its most solemn constitutional responsibility" and allowed an unlawful war to continue.

The civilian toll behind the charges

A US strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' school in Minab, Hormozgan province, at about 10:23 on 28 February 2026. Iranian authorities put the final count at 156 dead, among them 120 students, 26 teachers and seven parents. Four United Nations special procedures mandate holders said on 6 March that at least 165 schoolgirls were killed, most aged seven to 12, and cited Article 8 of the Rome Statute, which makes an intentional attack on an educational building a war crime. "There is no excuse for killing girls in a classroom," the experts said. Tolls from Iranian officials, UN experts and US senators range from about 120 children to more than 175 dead in total.

Independent analysis of missile debris, video and satellite imagery attributed the strike to a US Tomahawk. A preliminary US assessment reported on 11 March found US responsibility likely, attributing the strike to outdated coordinates supplied by military intelligence that mistook the school for a military site. Al Jazeera's investigation found the school had been architecturally separated from the adjacent military complex since 2016, and that the same strike spared a clinic opened in January 2025, which points to current targeting data rather than stale imagery.

Hegseth announced a command investigation on 13 March 2026, which the Washington Post treated as tacit acknowledgement of US responsibility. At the same press conference he said of the US that it "never targets civilians, literally never targets civilians."

The Pentagon received that investigation in April 2026 and has not released it. Kirsten Gillibrand led 25 senators in a letter to Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper on 13 July demanding release within a week. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 18 to nine on 18 June to cut Hegseth's travel funding to 25 per cent of normal levels until he hands over the Minab file, civilian harm investigations into three 2025 Yemen strikes and unedited video of the boat strikes. The report remains unreleased.

Yassamin Ansari renewed her push to impeach Hegseth in July 2026 after further detail on the school strike emerged. "Children were murdered in the first days of Trump's illegal, pointless war," Ansari said.

A crew of 11 died in the first of the strikes on small vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific that began on 2 September 2025, and a follow-up strike hit survivors in the water. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth gave a verbal order to kill everyone aboard, which he has denied. Admiral Frank Bradley, head of Special Operations Command, told lawmakers on 4 December 2025 that he had received no order to leave no survivors. Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu asked Attorney General Pam Bondi on 22 December 2025 to open a criminal investigation. No charges have followed.

The war powers record

The House voted 215 to 208 on 3 June 2026 to direct Trump to end hostilities with Iran, and 214 to 208 on 23 July 2026 to do the same. Both resolutions are non-binding. Massie was one of four Republicans to vote for the June measure, alongside Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett and Warren Davidson. A Senate version failed 47 to 49 in July.

Massie wrote on 23 July 2026 that the Pentagon was pretending there had been two Iran wars separated by a brief ceasefire, and that Hegseth was breaking the law.

US forces struck Caracas and captured Maduro and his wife in early January 2026, an operation Trump announced on 3 January. Congress did not authorise it beforehand.

Two earlier sets of articles, both Democratic

Ansari filed six articles against Hegseth on 15 April 2026 with 13 Democratic cosponsors, numbered H.Res.1177 and referred to the Judiciary Committee, where they remain. The second of those articles charges violations of the law of armed conflict and the targeting of civilians, naming the Minab school.

Shri Thanedar of Michigan filed H.Res.935 on 9 December 2025, charging murder and conspiracy to murder over the boat strikes and citing the federal murder and conspiracy statutes at 18 U.S.C. 1111 and 1117 and the War Crimes Act at 18 U.S.C. 2441. That resolution also sits in Judiciary.

Neither Democratic sponsor invoked the privilege Massie used today.

Two impeachment resolutions in one week

Massie has represented Kentucky's fourth district since 2012. He lost the Republican primary on 19 May 2026 to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL endorsed by Trump, in the most expensive House primary on record. Hegseth travelled to Kentucky to campaign against him, telling a rally for Gallrein that constant obstruction was not leadership.

Al Green gave notice on 14 September 2026 that he would force a vote on H.Res.1486, his resolution impeaching Trump over deaths during immigration enforcement operations. Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar said that day they would vote present on the motion to table it, the position they took when the House tabled Green's previous attempt in December 2025 by 237 votes to 140, with 47 members voting present.

Republicans hold 218 House seats to the Democrats' 214, with two vacancies as of 31 August 2026. Impeachment carries on a simple majority of members voting.

Alejandro Mayorkas was the last cabinet secretary impeached, on 13 February 2024 by 214 votes to 213 at the second attempt, an earlier vote having failed 214 to 216. The Senate disposed of both articles on 17 April 2024 without hearing evidence, by 51 to 48 and 51 to 49.

The House is scheduled to adjourn on Thursday.