Thomas Massie impeachment efforts collided with a surprise schedule change this week, as House Speaker Mike Johnson sent members home a day early while an impeachment push targeting Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth waited in the queue.
Johnson, R-La., told reporters the House had completed its work for the week and that Republicans would return to their districts to highlight legislative wins. The chamber is not slated to reconvene until Nov. 9, just after the midterms.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is departing Congress in January, said he believes the early adjournment was meant to avoid consideration of his eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth. Because his resolution was filed as privileged, the House had up to 48 hours to take it up if it remained in session.
Thomas Massie impeachment vote timing at issue
“I figured out why we canceled tomorrow,” Massie said on the floor, asserting that a vote connected to impeaching Defense Secretary Peter Bryan Hegseth would have occurred and now will not. He later added that leadership cut the day to dodge the vote.
A senior GOP leadership source had indicated members would be in session for a full week. By Wednesday, however, the House had aligned with the Senate to pass a Russia sanctions bill and approved a measure shifting certain data center utility costs to tech firms to protect consumers from higher electricity and water bills.
Despite bipartisan calls to stay and work on artificial intelligence concerns, the floor schedule was thinning, aside from Massie’s impeachment bid.
Under House procedure, if lawmakers had met Thursday, they would have been compelled to address Massie’s privileged resolution before its 48-hour window closed. The likely response from Republicans would have been a motion to table, a vote to set aside the resolution without reaching the merits.
If the House voted to table, the impeachment effort would have been effectively stopped without a direct vote on Hegseth. If the motion to table failed, the chamber would have moved immediately to votes on the eight impeachment articles, despite no committee process or hearings.
Massie suggested a tabling vote might not have succeeded, which would have forced members into direct impeachment votes. He argued that dynamic explains the early dismissal.
The Kentucky Republican has clashed with leadership over floor timing before. Last summer, Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., pursued a maneuver to force release of the Epstein files, as the House broke early for recess.
After a prolonged shutdown kept the chamber largely out of session, the House eventually voted 427-1 to require disclosure of those files.
Massie, who lost his primary to Republican Ed Gallrein, remains in office through the lame-duck session. Hegseth campaigned in northern Kentucky this spring on Gallrein’s behalf.
It is uncertain whether the Hegseth impeachment articles will return when the House reconvenes in November or later. For now, the dispute over whether Johnson ended the week to sidestep a difficult procedural vote is likely to persist.
