Republican pariah Sen. Thomas Massie will reintroduce his resolution of impeachment against the macho show pony, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and it would appear from soon-to-be Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries that the Democrats are all in this time. Is it accountability or revenge? Regardless, Trump is having none of it and has threatened to use the Department of Justice to go after Democrats for going after Republicans.

Amidst all that mess, there are signs that the president is deeply concerned about anyone getting a window into how his administration has been operating. Yesterday he insisted that the Democrats are “threatening a lot of people…just because they happen to be Republicans, or Republican supporters.” He said that the Democrats’ promises to investigate the administration are themselves crimes and that he is ordering the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate. The post is convoluted, but Trump insists that “there have been no impeachable acts committed, or even thought of, by the victims of this illegal process.”

Shortly after, he posted, “These SLEAZEBAGS should go to jail for what they are doing”, “The Senate must act, and stop being pushed around to the point of the Republican Party losing Elections, and worse!” he insisted.

While Trump has made clear that nothing he does, or has ever done, is impeachable, or, indeed, less than perfect, one distinction, inter alia, that has either been lost or ignored is that some conduct is very much criminal and deserving of investigation and/or impeachment. His vapid bravado aside, Hegseth stands out when it comes to using his authority to commit high crimes and misdemeanors.

On September 15, Rep. Massie outlined eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth (see here for his more detailed description). The two most compelling are these:

Article I – Waging War in Contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 Section 2(c): Charges Secretary Hegseth with waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat. It establishes that the war was unlawful from its inception….

Article V – Extrajudicial Killings: Charges Secretary Hegseth with replacing maritime law enforcement with unauthorized lethal military targeting of suspected drug traffickers, resulting in at least 221 deaths. It also addresses denial of quarter, secondary strikes on survivors, failure to rescue shipwrecked persons, and the creation of artificial legal authorities for the campaign.

Massie’s Article V is the single most damning, in my view. Hegseth is a principal architect of the Trump Administration’s campaign of “drug boat” strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It has now killed an estimated 244 people, virtually all of them civilians (Massie’s September figure of 221 is now somewhat outdated).

While it is almost certainly correct that the ongoing Iran war was and remains unlawful, the order came from Trump and in light of Congress’ failure to take any action under the War Powers Act to stop it or otherwise condemn it, it may well be that the decision was above Sgt. Hegseth’s pay grade. Can Congress’ inaction be understood as post hoc ratification of Trump’s waging war without legitimate reason or strategy, and Hegseth merely the tool by which this disaster was perpetrated?

But the bombing of boats and the murder of those on them is another matter entirely.

If you illegally order the deliberate killing of civilians – especially outside the context of a war – that’s outright murder. And that’s exactly what Pete Hegseth has done.

The contention is that Trump issued an Executive Order calling them “narco-terrorists,” a term that doesn’t exist in law but serves to persuade the unduly passionate that they don’t deserve to live, as if tagging the word “terrorists” onto the phrase eliminates the entirety of our constitutional structure that we try and convict people believed to commit crimes, not murder them.

This would be true even if those killed were all would-be drug dealers seeking to transport illegal drugs for sale in the US. I have previously explained why it is unjust and illegal to kill suspected drug dealers out of hand and why they are not the legal or moral equivalent of terrorists or enemy combatants in a war. As GOP Sen. Rand Paul pointed out when the drug boat strikes began, “The reason we have trials and we don’t automatically assume guilt is what if we make a mistake and they happen to be people fleeing the Venezuelan dictator? … off our coast it isn’t our policy just to blow people up … even the worst people in our country, they still get a trial.” But, in fact, the evidence indicates most were not on their way to the US and many were not transporting drugs at all. Some, for example, were just fishermen.

To the extent that it might be disputable whether Trump tried to extort Ukraine to smear Biden, or fomented insurrection to save himself from the humiliation of being a pathetic loser, murders are different. Very different. And what Hegseth did and continues to do is, without any doubt, murder.

In addressing accountability for Hegseth, Ilya Somin indulges in some Gertruding when it comes to Obama, no doubt to stave off the omnipresent “but Obama” retorts. Although it shouldn’t need to be said, it does: Nothing done by any other president makes Hegseth’s conduct any less criminal. The logical fallacy of “tu quoque” may be convincing to the intellectually challenged, but that’s why they call it a logical fallacy.

Is it politically wise to impeach Hegseth? That’s a very different question, although he is not exactly popular with the Republicans either, such that there is a possibility that he will be convicted by the Senate following impeachment. But should that happen, it will not be revenge, like the lame efforts to “get” Comey, et al., but fair accountability. And, as learned from Nuremberg, “just following orders” is no defense. If anything, it’s a reminder that Hegseth is merely a tool with a makeup room in the Pentagon.