Horsford addresses missed Hegseth impeachment vote

Nevada Rep. Steven Horsford took to the House floor Wednesday to address missing Tuesday’s vote to impeach the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

On Tuesday evening the House voted 211-204, largely along party lines, to refer articles of impeachment against Hegseth to a committee — effectively killing the impeachment effort until the end of the current Congress in January. Horsford was 1 of 11 Democrats who missed the key procedural vote, which failed by just seven votes. 

Impeachment would have represented an extraordinary rebuke of one of the most divisive members of Trump’s Cabinet.

Horsford said “a personal emergency” delayed his arrival to the House floor, but noted he would have voted to deny the motion to shelve the impeachment effort by referring eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth to a House committee.

“I take full responsibility. The accountability I demand of others applies to me too,” Horsford said. “I would have voted ‘no’ on the Republican motion to refer, so that the House could proceed to a vote on Secretary Hegseth’s impeachment.”

“Hegseth should be impeached. Americans deserve answers. No Secretary of Defense is above the law. Republicans may have delayed accountability, but they have not ended it,” Horsford continued. 

Horsford did not elaborate on the nature of the emergency that he said prevented him from voting.

Several Democrats blamed traffic and conflicting events for missing the vote, while others accused Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of closing the vote early.

The vote came hours after Hegseth defended himself in a fiery news conference at the Pentagon, where he denounced the impeachment effort as an attack on American service members.