“Impeaching Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of Defense of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section impeaches Peter B. Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, for high crimes and misdemeanors and directs that articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate.
This section charges Secretary of Defense Peter B. Hegseth with murder in the first degree under 18 U.S.C. 1111(a)—as a willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing and as perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of human beings other than the perpetrator—and with conspiracy to murder under 18 U.S.C. 1117, based on his orders on September 2, 2025, directing the Armed Forces to conduct lethal strikes against small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean claimed to carry drug smugglers, including a specific strike in the Caribbean Sea off South America that killed most of 11 persons aboard an initial target vessel and a second strike that killed at least two survivors clinging to the wreckage. The section asserts these acts violated U.S. criminal law, the Law of War Manual, international obligations including common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions as incorporated in 18 U.S.C. 2441, and principles of command responsibility; declares them high crimes and misdemeanors; and states that Secretary Hegseth warrants impeachment, trial, removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
This section charges Secretary Peter B. Hegseth with high crimes and misdemeanors for recklessly and unlawfully mishandling classified information in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1924, which prohibits U.S. officers, employees, contractors, or consultants from knowingly removing such information without authority and with intent to retain it at an unauthorized location, punishable by fine or imprisonment for not more than five years. It alleges that from March 11 through 15, 2025, Hegseth shared operational details of imminent airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen—including target information, weapons systems, launch times for F-18 aircraft, MQ-9 drones, and Tomahawk missiles, aircraft arrival times, and bomb impact times—in a commercial Signal group chat that included the Vice President, other Cabinet secretaries, intelligence directors, the National Security Advisor, the White House Chief of Staff, subordinates, and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. The section states that transcripts published by The Atlantic on March 24, 2025, confirm the discussion of classified information on an unauthorized platform, warranting Hegseth's impeachment, removal from office, and disqualification from holding future office.