(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican in his final months before a nationally watched expensive election finds his successor, is expected to be in support of all or some of the eight articles of impeachment against War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Sen. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced them on Tuesday. Tillis, a key vote last year in Hegseth’s confirmation, earlier this month emphatically reversed support to the extent of calling him inept and needing to be replaced.
For context, however, the Senate has 53 Republicans; the House of Representatives is 218-214 majority Republicans with one independent still caucusing with the Grand Old Party and two vacancies; and a resolution making it out of the lower chamber would still need two-thirds (67 votes if all 100 vote) in the Senate to convict and expel. Translated, the measure is arguably dead on arrival, and possibly why Massie didn’t forewarn any colleagues.
“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Tillis wrote Sept. 2 on social media. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.
“I urge the president to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it.”
Massie and Tillis each have picked battles with the administration of second-term Republican President Donald Trump. Massie lost the 4th Congressional District primary to former Navy SEAL and Trump endorsed Ed Gallrein on May 19; Tillis opted to escape Beltway gridlock last June after a public spat with the mercurial president and being one of two holdouts on a reconciliation bill he said would add $32 billion to the cost of Medicaid for the state budget and rural communities back home.
Hegseth’s comments on the eve of Massie’s primary were not forgotten.
Among the charges Massie levels against Hegseth is moving forward with military action in Iran against the War Powers Resolution of 1973; suppressing free speech; and action in Venezuela leading to the capture of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife was without legal authority.
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