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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who will likely be the Speaker of the House come January, said Sunday that he is a “hard yes” when it comes to impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of Defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran,” Jeffries said to ABC News’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) had told Karl that he intends to introduce a resolution of impeachment against the defense secretary.

  • _stranger_@lemmy.world
    14·
    23 hours ago

    Seriously, he didn’t say “convict” because removal still requires 2/3 of the Senate, and the Dems only have 54%, not 66%.

    This is very likely Jeffries plan to waste as much time as possible. They need to get him the fuck out of that chair.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Fuck Jeffries, but it does make sense for him to only say “impeach” without mentioning removal as he’s in The House and has no control over the Senate’s vote.

      • _stranger_@lemmy.world
        1·
        36 minutes ago

        I get that he doesn’t have the power to do anything beyond MC the show, that’s why it’s meaningless for him to speak up

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          1·
          26 minutes ago

          I mean no, he is the leader of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives. He absolutely should be talking about impeaching (and not just Hegseth). It’s just not really surprising that he is only talking about the first part and not the removal since that’s not the purview of The House.

    • CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social
      4·
      14 hours ago

      Nah, this is smart. Convict the provable war criminal who doesn’t have branded merch for the cult, if you can’t get him you can’t get Trump.

      I just don’t trust Jeffries to take Step 2.

      • _stranger_@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 hours ago

        they can’t do anything to Hegseth without 60% 67% of the Senate. Maybe this will pressure trump to appoint someone else, but that might actually be worse for everyone if he does it in the next few weeks.

        • Manjushri@piefed.socialEnglish
          2·
          3 hours ago

          67%. To convict in the senate in an impeachment trial you need a two-thirds majority.

          Article I, Section 3, Clause 6:

          The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

          • _stranger_@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 hours ago

            Yeah that one was a typo. I looked it up and couldn’t find anything specific beyond the constitution which a law journal confirmed covers all impeachments. Simple majority to impeach, 2/3rds to convict. I would be extremely surprised if anyone crossed the aisle to convict, but Texas also turned blue last week, so who knows!