Anti-American Operative Thomas Massie Demands Impeachment of Pete Hegseth; Pete Hegseth Blasts Him

Yesterday I worried when I saw that Pete Hegseth would be delivering an address today. I feared he would be announcing his withdrawal from the administration.

I guess he still might do that but it's more likely he was announcing his coming rebuttal of Thomas Massie's latest screed against him.

Massie's argument was that Pete Hegseth should be impeached for limiting lawyers' ability to veto operations or impose lethal restrictions on troops fighting for America.

A veteran of the Global War on Terror offered his own reaction to Thomas Massie's work on behalf of the Caliphate.

InfantryDort
@infantrydort

Nah man. I'm not gonna let this go unchecked. As a GWOT veteran I can't.

I listened to Massie drone through his articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth and I recognized the sickness immediately.

We fought under this ridiculous worldview during GWOT, and it cost us dearly.

Massie is merely an acolyte of the bloodless bureaucratic religion that puts the lawyer in the center of the kill chain, treats every American use of force like a moral emergency, and somehow always finds more sympathy for the enemy being hunted than for the American sent to hunt him.

His whole speech I began wondering who he actually was speaking for, and that's not good.

GWOT vets know EXACTLY where that road leads. Another approval. Another review. Another JAG opinion. Another commander afraid to make a decision because one bad headline will destroy his career faster than losing the fight ever could.

We were lectured for years about "courageous restraint." We were told that killing one enemy might create ten more. We were taught to fear our own lethality while the enemy studied our hesitation.

And then we spent twenty years bleeding into the fucking sand.

So spare me the sermon about how dangerous it is to remove lawyers who think their job is to become a veto point over command. Spare me the sudden reverence for process from people who watched Afghanistan collapse, watched thirteen Americans die at Abbey Gate, watched the Taliban retake Kabul, and somehow found no constitutional apocalypse worthy of impeachment then.

Now the outrage is that the machine is actually being used. That commanders are expected to command. And that enemies are being treated like.... actual enemies for once.

That civilian leadership is telling the bureaucracy to get the hell out of the way of lawful military action.

From where I sit, the betrayal isn't that Washington finally found some aggression for a change. The realest betrayal is that men like Massie still think the lesson of the GWOT was that we needed more hesitation.

No. WE NEEDED MORE VICTORY.

And I'm done pretending those are the same thing. We're all done with it. Massie is dead wrong here, he knows it, you know it, and I know it.

Sincerely,
-A seriously disgruntled GWOT vet who knows Hegseth is the cure to what ails our military here.

A former military lawyer notes that Massie continues whining that the US attacked narcoterrorists smuggling drugs to the US by boat without having a lawyer give them permission.

It's always, ALWAYS drugs with these fucking hippies.

- Article IV.

The basis for the next article is a claim that: "Secretary Hegseth willfully and systemically refused to comply with laws and directives mandated for the protection of civilians during the commission of armed conflict, chilled and rendered ineffective such components to prevent and mitigate harm to civilians, and therefore, foreseeably effected the death and injury of over 200 civilians [referring to the attack reportedly directed against an elementary school in Minab, Iran], to the manifest injury of the United States."

Tbh nearly every line of this article misrepresents various aspects of international AND domestic law in such an egregious manner that I'm tempted to do a deep-dive on just Article IV. Maybe there will be an opportunity to do so at some point in the future.

For now, I'll just focus on the core of this allegation: that SECWAR Hegseth failed to comply with legal "obligations" involving civilian harm mitigation & reduction (CHMR).

...

The MAIN point to address here is that Congress doesn't possess the constitutional authority to FORCE DoW to implement specific CHMR practices. Congress can appropriate funds for such practices (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 12). And Congress can "make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" (Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 14).

But POTUS is appointed as commander-in-chief of the military (Art. II, Sec. 2, Cl. 1). And practices related to civilian harm mitigation & reduction are strictly within the purview of CiC authority since they don't involve making rules for the armed forces (that authority is exercised by adopting the Uniform Code of Military Justice ... more about the UCMJ below).

...

- Article V.

The essential basis for the next allegation is: "Secretary Hegseth abused the authority and trust vested in him as Secretary of Defense not only by directing the unlawful use of lethal military force, resulting in the summary execution of at least 243 persons in international waters, but also by using his office to compel members of the Armed Forces to carry out such operations under false legal authorities that he caused to be constructed and imposed upon the chain of command."

This claim is centered on the campaign of attacks directed against suspected narcoterrorists in international waters.

...

The MAIN problem here (out of many) is the assertion that: "By subjecting persons merely suspected of criminal conduct to lethal military force without judicial process, without congressional authorization, and without establishing a lawful basis for treating such persons or vessels as military targets, Secretary Hegseth arrogated to himself and the Executive Branch the roles of judge, jury, and executioner and asserted a unilateral power to determine who may live and who may die."

Of course, the "without congressional authorization" element returns us to the analysis from the WPR articles involving the concurrent constitutional powers to "declare war" (Congress) AND engage in "hostilities" (POTUS).

Even so, the assertion that suspected narcoterrorists operating drug boats on the High Seas are MERELY "suspected of criminal conduct" is a gross misrepresentation of international law involving the resort to force (jus ad bellum) & domestic implementation thereof.

See, this article explicitly acknowledges that an interagency task force developed a classified memo that presented "a legal basis for such strikes" by determining that the "United States is engaged in a noninternational armed conflict (NIAC) with 24 Latin American Designated Terrorist Organizations."

Whether one disagrees with this determination or not, the EXECUTIVE BRANCH HAS THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO. And when it DID determine the existence of a noninternational armed conflict against drug cartels, by definition the adversary was no longer merely "suspected of criminal conduct."

Yes, trafficking narcotics IS criminal conduct. But saying it is ONLY criminal conduct would be like claiming al-Qaeda operatives are "only" criminals since they're engaged in activity that is against the law.

A drug dealer at home is a criminal. A narcotics trafficker on the High Seas that ISN'T part of a group the government has determined to be an adversarial belligerent in a (noninternational) armed conflict is ALSO a criminal.

But a narcotrafficker on the High Seas that IS part of a group the government has determined to be an adversarial belligerent is a criminal AND a civilian taking direct part in hostilities (DPH).

And what do we do with civilians DPH? Sure, we can detain them - but we can ALSO make them the object of attack pursuant to LOAC. That's what DoW did, that's what SECWAR Hegseth directed, and none of it constitutes a "high Crime or Misdemeanor".

Massie is also crying that Trump "kidnapped" Maduro, who again is a federally indicted drug-trafficker and therefore is a being deserving of special protection by nasty drug-obsessed hippie douchebags.

Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley

I am reviewing the eight articles on the impeachment of Sec. Pete Hegseth. In my view, six of the eight articles should be nonstarters, including the Iranian articles. Presidents, including Clinton, Obama, and Biden, have asserted the authority to commence such operations...

...Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie said yesterday that he filed the articles because he wants to "litigate" the underlying war powers of Congress. I agree with Massie about the need for Congress to assert its constitutional authority over the declaration of war. However, Trump was acting within the authority long asserted by his predecessor. More importantly...

...Massie is not going to "litigate" the matter through impeachments. Courts have not limited this authority and are unlikely to do so. This is a call for an impeachment by members who tolerated the exercise of the authority by Democratic members...

...It is equally baffling to seek to impeach on the basis of the "kidnapping" of former President Maduro. Trump was acting within the authority recognized by the courts in the Noreiga case. That was, to use Massie's term, "litigated." ...

Hegseth's own rebuttal was also unsparing.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday railed against the Republican congressman who introduced articles of impeachment against him and aggressively defended his leadership in the Iran war and other military operations.

"What one disgruntled and defeated congressman is attempting is not oversight, and it's not accountability. It's a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment," Hegseth said a day after Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., put forward the eight impeachment articles.

"It's a farce, and it's a stunt, and everybody knows it," Hegseth said during his first Pentagon news conference in six months.

The articles accuse Hegseth of waging war in contravention of Congress, carrying out extrajudicial killings tied to boat strikes in the Caribbean against purported drug smugglers and suppressing free speech by targeting Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a military veteran.

Massie, a libertarian who lost his Republican primary in May after clashing with President Donald Trump, kicked off the impeachment battle less than a week after a blue-wave midterm that will flip House and Senate control to Democrats.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who is poised to be speaker of the House in the next Congress, on Sunday said Democrats are a "hard yes" on impeaching Hegseth. He reiterated his support on Monday in a press conference.

Hegseth added:

"This is not patriotism. This is sabotage"

Hegseth got a good grade from the boss.

"Pete Hegseth gets an "A" PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!" Trump posted on Truth Social.

Awww, poor little girl got her feefees hurt!

Tara Copp
@TaraCopp

A security agent for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just warned the reporters here -- for Hegseth's first press conference in 6 months -- that we will be physically removed from the briefing room if we are not professional and maintain decorum. We asked if that meant no shouted questions and got no clarity. It's the first time any of us could ever remember being threatened like this. Shouted questions are normal. "This is crazy town" one journalist said, noting the White House has never threatened reporters like that

Oh wait, she's not a little girl, she's a middle-aged Karen who, like all middle-aged Karen, has no sex drive but gets OFF on always being both victim and hero at all possible times.

Hello everybody! I hope you're all healthy and happy and that you've cleared out most of the wreckage we all found ourselves under from last Tuesday night.