(Picture credit Don Bacon)
OMAHA — Congressman Don Bacon said he was “torn” over whether to support or oppose the impeachment of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth during a gaggle with Capitol Hill reporters on Monday.
“I’m weighing it,” Bacon told CNN reporter Manu Raju. “We have eight articles, and I’m not very sympathetic to those articles.”
Republican Thomas Massie filed articles against Hegseth that accused him of “waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat.”
Bacon said while he is open to impeaching Hegseth, he did not necessarily agree with the reasons Massie gave. “I feel like Iran’s waged war against us for 47 years,” he said. “I’ve seen a need to have gone into Iran. They’ve been killing us for 47 years; they were building a nuke.”
Bacon went on to say he would be open to other arguments in favor of impeaching Hegseth, stating that he was “torn” because he did not support Massie’s “libertarian spirit.” “The areas that concern me most about the secretary are not in the articles of impeachment,” he said. “The firing and redlining of 80 admirals. The withholding of appropriated money all year for Ukraine. I’m not the only one who feels that way, there’s a bunch of us that have been talking about it.”
The congressman said there were other articles of impeachment being floated that he would “grapple with.” When asked if he would support impeachment if articles were drafted with the concerns he expressed, Bacon said he “would be more inclined to” but had no plans to bring forward the articles of impeachment himself.
“This is not going to go anywhere in the Senate,” he added.
In accordance with House rules, Massie’s articles of impeachment will be voted on by Wednesday. Hegseth has received scrutiny from Democrats and anti-war Republicans over support of the war in Iran.
In a conversation with reporters Monday, Hegseth said he agreed with Trump that he would “do it again” in regards to the war. "Someone had to confront the Iranian regime's pursuit of a nuclear weapon,” he said.
In a statement to The Plains Sentinel, Bacon confirmed his Monday statements, saying he would be “amenable” to impeachment if the articles were different:
“I have been very critical of the Secretary. But the impeachment is written by Massie and he has a different perspective than I on Iran, drug runners, Israel and Ukraine. I’m not in agreement on his actual impeachment language, but would have been amenable to it if it included delaying $$ appropriated for Ukraine, undermining NATO, firing 80 flag officers and kicking out mainline media from Pentagon.”
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.