President Donald Trump and members of his administration attend a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., January 29, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
As Democrats begin measuring for new drapes in the House Speaker's office, questions are swirling about which of President Donald Trump's Cabinet officials will be investigated or impeached first.
The New York Times' Susan Glasser spoke with Mona Caren for The Bulwark on Saturday about some of the most significant problems facing the Trump administration as they look to his last lame duck session of Congress.
Already, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has presented articles of impeachment for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has been carrying the president's water throughout the various military actions that could qualify as war crimes.
In addition to defying Congress over the Iran War, Massie’s eight-article resolution also targets Hegseth over U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Yemen, and accuses him of illegally directing the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without congressional authorization. It also accuses him of carrying out extrajudicial killings.
While Democrats may have internal conflicts over specific policies on the war in Iran, that won't matter when it comes to going after Pete Hegseth, Glasser said. She even went so far as to call his "stewardship of the Defense Department ... a national and an international embarrassment."
Glasser predicted that the optics will be horrific for the Trump administration as uniformed generals and military officials appear on Capitol Hill to explain what advice they gave to both Trump and Hegseth.
"So, you're going to see that, I think, no matter what, even if Democrats don't take back the Senate, if they do take back the Senate, we're already hearing a very robust debate here in Washington about what approach should they take to accountability and to investigations. Is impeachment ruled off the table? Instead of impeaching Donald Trump this time, will they take the course that Republicans took?" she asked, talking about the attempted impeachment of former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“I think the real ironic thing about Pete Hegseth’s potential impeachment from being secretary of defense is six of those eight articles are about Pete following illegal orders from the president,” said Sen.Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), speaking with a host at the September Atlantic Festival in New York. “If he’d just listened to us, he would not have found himself as now … [as] the first cabinet member where a member of his own party has tried to impeach him and throw him out of office.”
Meanwhile, reporting has made it clear that Trump is both annoyed and bored with the Iran war and looking to move on. Democrats could not only move forward with Hegseth's impeachment, but they could also make a deal with Trump: he could save face by throwing Hegseth under the bus, allowing the president to dodge blame for so much failure, as one opinion columnist suggested back in April.
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