The U.S. House of Representatives, under Republican control until the end of the year, has halted the attempt to remove the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, who is blamed for initiating the war in Iran and other military operations without the prior approval of Congress.
Republican lawmakers pushed for a vote to route the 'impeachment' proposal filed by Thomas Massie, a Republican representative from Kentucky and a critic of the Administration of Donald Trump, and send it to the Justice commission. The maneuver has moved forward with 211 votes in favor and 204 against, which sends the procedure to a commission where Republicans have enough majority to bury it.
Only Massie has broken party discipline and aligned with the Democrats, although this attempt at 'impeachment' could be just a prelude to new offensives, since the new Congress with a Democratic majority will take office at the beginning of the year following last November 3’s midterm elections.
The U.S. president reacted immediately, celebrating that efforts to remove Hegseth have "failed spectacularly" and emphasizing that all the Republicans in the House, except Massie, whom he calls an "authentic loser," backed the head of the Pentagon.
"Once again, the victories in Venezuela and Iran, the best recruitment figures in the history of the Armed Forces and a spirit like few times has been seen before have led to the acquittal of a great American patriot," he assessed.
Trump has also used this episode to go after the Democrats, whom he accuses of using the country "as a weapon" and urges to "stop them."
The Defense Secretary, a close ally of Trump and a staunch defender of the war in Iran, had already denounced on Tuesday that the removal process against him was a "fraud" and a "propaganda maneuver" intended to fail, just like the 'impeachment' processes that the president himself faced in 2019 and 2021.
"What an unhappy and defeated congressman is trying to do is not to carry out oversight work or demand accountability. It is a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment," the head of the Pentagon denounced at a press conference.
On this line, Hegseth defended the legality and results of military operations in Iran, Yemen, Venezuela and against drug cartels in the Caribbean, all of them questioned in the context of the attempt at 'impeachment'.