For nearly two years, the Trump regime has broken the law in plain sight and dared anyone to stop them. The courts have pushed back at times, but with Republicans running Congress, the branch with the power to hold him accountable has done almost nothing at all. Last week voters made it clear they’re done with that. Now, for the first time since the midterms, Congress has a chance to show that the era of lawlessness without consequences is over, starting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
What happens next will set the tone for everything that follows. If Congress impeaches and removes Hegseth, it sends a message to every official in this administration that the law applies to them too, and it gives the new Democratic majorities in Congress powerful momentum heading into January.
Republican leaders are desperate to bury this with a procedural maneuver before their majority runs out, and they might manage to delay it, but they can’t make voters forget what this regime has done. Accountability for the Trump regime starts now, and the louder we are at the very beginning, the harder it will be for anyone in this administration to escape it.
Sign the petition: Tell Congress to impeach and remove Pete Hegseth
Hegseth is exactly where this reckoning should begin. He has waged a war in Iran for over 250 days – ignoring a law requiring authorization from Congress for conflicts lasting longer than 60 days. And Americans are paying for it every day. Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have sent fuel prices climbing and squeezed families who were already struggling with the cost of living.
The articles of impeachment also charge Hegseth with carrying out extrajudicial killings in strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. And all the while, he has used the Pentagon to push his Christian nationalist beliefs on our service members and turned the military into the latest front for Trump’s MAGA culture war. When confronted with all of it this week, he didn’t defend the legality of a single action. He called accountability “sabotage.”
Speaker Johnson and House Republican leaders are so worried about this fight that they’re trying to kill the impeachment resolution, before the House ever votes on the charges themselves. But the math is on our side. Republicans hold a razor-thin majority, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries supports impeachment, and only a few Republicans need to break ranks for it to pass. Many of them just watched voters punish their party for this war, and they’re watching closely to see whether that anger is still there.
And the fight doesn’t end in the House. If Hegseth is impeached, the Senate has to decide whether he keeps his job. Removal is a high bar, but every senator needs to know that voters are demanding it.
Voters did their part last week. Now it’s on Congress to do theirs, and on all of us to make sure they don’t flinch. Every signature on this petition makes it harder for wavering Republicans in the House to hide behind a procedural vote and easier for Democrats to hold the line, and it tells this lawless regime that the accountability they’ve dodged for two years is finally coming. Hegseth may be the first member of Trump’s administration to face that reckoning, but he won’t be the last.