It has often been said that Democrats should be the party of ‘Law and Order’, but the enforcement of their laws and their order has heretofore excluded the rich, powerful, and elite. No more. Democrats (and the few sane or perhaps just power-hungry Republicans remaining) have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver a crippling blow to a future political adversary as well as criminal, while demonstrating to the American people and the elite classes that universal laws do apply universally, not just to the bottom 99%.
We must not make an emotional or moral case, designed to win plaudits or arguments, but a legal argument, based purely on provable facts, designed to successfully impeach and then convict a known criminal. So, let us examine the facts.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Is Pete Hegseth a civil officer of the United States? Yes.
Did he commit high crimes and misdemeanors? Yes.
Let’s pause on that for a minute. The goal, as stated above, is not to win a moral argument but to win a legal one; to effectively remove Pete Hegseth not just from his current office but to bar him from ever becoming a federal employee, elected or not, again. And so, when Hegseth is impeached, the Article of Impeachment should be extremely narrow and tailor-fit to garner the most amount of votes in the Senate as possible.
The truth is, everyone knows Hegseth is a criminal. He could be impeached for many, many things. For instance, his operations against Venezuela and Iran both count as crimes of aggression and war crimes. But, many in Congress agree with those operations, including many Democrats. Like the first Trump impeachment showed, it is a waste of time trying to impeach someone on a technicality: “he did everything we would have done but he did it poorly and forgot to file the right paperwork” is a losing political argument; no wonder Democrats lost that first impeachment fight1.
So, what then, are the specific high crimes and misdemeanors to get him convicted? Thankfully, Hegseth himself as provided all the evidence, clues, and witnesses needed to build such a tight case that if Democrats do fail to impeach Hegseth, everyone should be saying:
The Very Specific High Crime and Misdemeanor
On September 2, 2025, in international waters, the United States military conducted a lethal drone strike on a boat alleged to be carrying narcotics. The initial strike killed everyone save two people, who clung onto the wreckage. A subsequent strike was then ordered, and killed those two survivors. Multiple public reports, as well as direct eyewitnesses, have stated that Hegseth issued a spoken directive to “kill everybody” and to “leave no survivors”.
Hegseth observed both the initial strike and the second follow-up strike, and commended the officer under his command who ordered the drone pilots to execute the second strike.
Hegseth’s order to strike the boat initially on September 2, 2025 violated the following provisions of Federal and International laws:
Absence of a War Powers Resolution or Authorization of the Use of Military Force from Congress for Hegseth to order these strikes constitutes a High Crime against Congress.
Hegseth is also thereby guilty of the following other High Crimes and/or misdemeanors: 18 U.S.C. § 1111 - murder on the high seas, 18 U.S.C. § 1117 - conspiracy to commit murder
The Geneva Conventions and their domestic counterpart, the War Crimes Act of 1996 (18 U.S.C. § 2441) criminalizes the killing of those hors de combat such as those shipwrecked.
Further, officers who carried out Hegseth’s illegal order should be referred to the DoD and DoJ for violating Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 118 (murder)
The Defense
It’s worth considering how Hegseth might defend his actions, beyond obvious claims of executive privilege. He will doubtless claim that the people aboard the alleged drug boat were lawful combatants in an armed conflict who posed an imminent threat justifying lethal force. In a sense, if you genuinely believe that drug traffickers are part of a (Chinese? Iranian? who knows?) plot to destroy America, and if you believe that that drug importation constitutes both an armed conflict and an imminent threat justifying lethal force, then this defense becomes believable.
Of course, Congress is not the Judicial branch; it can make its own findings on the facts. We can hope that Congress will not agree with the Hegseth’s defense on this, but Democrats should prepare for not finding 67 votes for impeachment on this specific article.
Rather, it is the double-tap strike that was specifically and provably illegal. The chain of illegal orders begins with Hegseth’s command to “kill them all”. Coupled with his other public statements and eyewitness testimony, it is clear that Hegseth meant that no quarter would be accepted, even if individuals were hors de combat.
Every other officer present, including the drone operator who fired both shots, had a Constitutional and legal duty to refuse that illegal order. Not only did they not refuse to fire, but they aided and abetted Hegseth in carrying out the illegal order, including the second strike.
And, even if Hegseth could muster a successful defense over the first strike, the second strike, hitting the disabled ship and two individuals clinging on for dear life, is so blatantly illegal that even Republicans would be forced to concede to the reality of the facts.
On those merits alone, Hegseth could be and should be impeached and removed from office.
The Trump Factor
Obviously, Donald Trump could try to prevent this by firing Hegseth. Democrats should ignore that fig leaf and impeach Hegseth regardless, to send a message and to set a precedent. While DoJ will take its sweet time investigating Hegseth, a Congressional impeachment of Hegseth could bar him from ever serving in government or being elected to anything ever again. It is the sole power Congress alone has to bar someone from public life, indefinitely, and if ever it should be executed, it should be executed for Hegseth.
And, of course, it should be executed against Trump’s other cronies. This is why the Hegseth impeachment is so crucial: once Democrats successfully convict a single Trump official, the floodgates will open. We could get rid of an entire generation would-be Republican officeholders2 in a single session of Congress! And, obviously, Trump as well could be taken down3.
It all starts with Pete, though. Take him down, and the whole temple will follow.
The second impeachment failed because Democrats allowed it to fail. They didn’t arrest Trump or any of the people who openly conspired with him. They should have.
Presidential admins on both sides output future Congressional leaders by the dozen. The people working in the admin right now will be running for Congress in the future. Except, they won’t, because they’ll all be in prison for their many, many crimes.
Call me crazy, but Vance is preferable to Trump, and yes, I will say that out loud.