House Buries Hegseth Impeachment Articles on 211–204 Vote

The House of Representatives voted 211 to 204 on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, to refer eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to the Judiciary Committee. The vote was Roll Call 317. Referral ends the matter for the 119th Congress: the articles won't reach the floor unless the committee reports them out, and the committee's Republican majority has no deadline to act. [Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives: Roll Call 317, motion to refer, November 10, 2026]

Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican, reintroduced the articles on Monday, November 9. His was the only Republican vote against referral. All 203 Democrats who voted opposed it too, and 18 members, 11 Democrats and 7 Republicans, didn't vote at all.

The margin was seven votes, and the absences didn't decide it. Seat all 18 missing members along party lines and the referral still passes, 218 to 215. Democratic leaders didn't whip the vote; Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who supports impeaching Hegseth, told his members to vote their conscience, according to CBS News. [Florida Man News Network: 18 skipped the Hegseth impeachment vote]

The eight articles charge high crimes and misdemeanors. They accuse Hegseth of starting hostilities with Iran without a declaration of war or congressional authorization, in violation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. They also cover strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific, strikes against Yemen, and the extradition of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

This is the resolution's second burial. Massie first filed the 34-page document in September and read it on the floor for more than an hour. Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the House early the next day, ahead of the midterm recess, and the vote never happened. Because the resolution is privileged, the House had to take it up within two legislative days of Monday's reintroduction.

The calendar reverses the math. Voters dealt Republicans heavy midterm losses on November 3, and Democrats take sizable majorities in both chambers when the new Congress convenes in January. A privileged resolution refiled then gets the same two-day clock in front of a House whose voting members opposed burial 203 to 0 on Tuesday.

One procedural door stays unlocked. A discharge petition signed by 218 members can pull a measure out of committee and onto the floor. It needs Republican signatures to reach 218 in this Congress, and Tuesday's vote counted exactly one Republican willing to defy the referral. The petition route is arithmetic, and the arithmetic isn't there.

The file's address, until January, is a committee room: House Judiciary, chaired by the majority that just voted to send it there.