Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) — one of the few House Republicans who survived politically after voting to impeach Donald Trump — is now demanding a second scalp: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"Pete Hegseth Deserves To Be Impeached," Kinzinger wrote in a newsletter published to his Substack, arguing "the case is overwhelming" even as he stressed that "impeachment should never be taken lightly."
Kinzinger's push comes as Congress sits an ocean away from Washington. He noted that Speaker Mike Johnson called an unusually long, seven-week recess — stretching past the November election — right as a privileged impeachment resolution targeting Hegseth was about to force a floor vote within 48 hours under House rules.
"So he sent them home," Kinzinger wrote, adding that Johnson "swore up and down it had nothing to do with Hegseth. Nobody believed him."
Notably, Kinzinger pointed out, the resolution wasn't filed by a Democrat looking to score points — it came from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a staunch conservative.
Kinzinger, who compared his own 2021 vote to impeach Trump to Republican Rep. Tom Railsback's 1974 vote to impeach Richard Nixon, laid out a lengthy case against Hegseth built on three pillars.
First: the boat strikes. Kinzinger wrote that the Pentagon has carried out roughly 69 strikes on small boats it claims were smuggling drugs, killing at least 231 people, without releasing evidence or most victims' names. He noted United Nations experts have called the killings "extrajudicial executions," while Hegseth has bragged the military would "hunt them down and kill them" and treat suspected traffickers "exactly how we treated Al-Qaeda."
Second: Hegseth's purge of the military's senior ranks, including the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Navy Secretary and "battle-tested commanders in the middle of an active war" — a move Kinzinger said jettisons "vital experience right when we need it most."
Third: the Iran war itself, which Kinzinger says Hegseth pushed Trump into without the congressional authorization required after 60 days of combat, backed by a legal justification "so flimsy it would have embarrassed a first-year law student." Kinzinger cited six unnamed U.S. officials "familiar with the Pentagon's internal casualty figures" who put the actual American death toll at "at least 22" — higher than the 18 publicly confirmed killed.
Even so, Kinzinger cautioned Democrats against turning a likely new majority into an impeachment free-for-all against every member of what he called "the most corrupt administration in American history," warning against burning political capital on lower-profile officials like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. "Nobody is voting on the finer points of the War Powers Resolution," he wrote. "They're voting because gas costs too much."
His bottom line: "So here's where I land: impeach him. But do it with the full weight of history on your shoulders."
