That question is at the center of Rep. Thomas Massie's resolution against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The resolution's eight articles charge "high crimes and misdemeanors". But most of what they describe is alleged violations of the War Powers Resolution and conduct of military policy, not offenses listed in a criminal statute. Whether that kind of conduct counts depends on what an old phrase means, and on who gets to decide.

Where did the phrase come from?

It came from English law. "High crimes and misdemeanors" had been used in parliamentary impeachments for more than four centuries by 1787, with charges traced back to 1386. Over that time Parliament impeached ministers and judges for breaking the constitution or the laws, abusing power, doing their jobs incompetently, self-dealing, misusing funds, corruption and "mal-administration."

The Library of Congress's Constitution Annotated describes the same pattern. English impeachment reached abuses of office, misuse of funds, neglect of duty, corruption and abuses of the public trust. Parliament seems to have used it to punish political offenses that harmed the state.

Two details show how far this sits from ordinary criminal law:

The case on everyone's mind in 1787 was Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India. Britain impeached him for high crimes and misdemeanors, including maladministration, corruption and cruelty, only weeks before the Philadelphia Convention began. According to the Constitution Annotated, the charges included corruption and abuse of power.

How did the Framers pick these words?

They chose them on September 8, 1787, as a replacement for a word they thought was too vague. Madison's notes from that day are the clearest guide to the phrase.

At that point the draft allowed impeachment only for "Treason & bribery." George Mason of Virginia objected that treason, as defined, would not reach "many great and dangerous offences." He pointed to the Hastings case and noted that an attempt to subvert the Constitution might not count as treason.

What happened next, according to Madison's notes:

  1. Mason moved to add "or maladministration."
  2. Madison objected that "so vague a term will be equivalent to a tenure during pleasure of the Senate." In other words, officials would serve only as long as the Senate liked them.
  3. Mason withdrew that word and offered "other high crimes & misdemeanors agst. the State."
  4. The new wording passed 8 states to 3, with New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware voting no.

Maladministration was a familiar standard. It was a ground for impeachment in many state constitutions of the time. The Framers rejected it, which the Constitution Annotated says would presumably have taken in a broad range of common-law offenses, and settled on a narrower phrase. But the phrase they picked had itself long covered maladministration in England. That tension is still argued over today.

One loose end: Mason's "agst. the State" isn't in the final Constitution, which just says "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." We couldn't confirm from a primary source when that change was made or whether it meant anything.

Alexander Hamilton called it political. In Federalist No. 65 he described impeachable offenses as those coming "from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust." He called them political in nature.

The Framers also limited the stakes compared with England. The House of Lords could impose any punishment. The U.S. Constitution allows only removal from office and possibly disqualification from future federal office. Any criminal punishment has to come through the regular courts.

Does an impeachable offense have to be an actual crime?

There's no settled answer. This is the main dividing line among scholars.

  • The broad view: The phrase was a single legal term of art covering abuse of office, whether or not the conduct is a crime. Paulsen argues its meaning is "not so much vague as simply broad". The English precedents and Hamilton's "public trust" language support this reading.
  • The narrow view: An impeachable offense must be an actual criminal-law crime. Alan Dershowitz holds it. Paulsen calls that view "historically indefensible", but keep in mind that he is a scholar making his own argument, not reporting a consensus.

Don't expect the courts to settle it. In Nixon v. United States (1993), the Supreme Court held that a former judge's challenge to how the Senate tried him was a nonjusticiable political question, meaning courts couldn't decide it. The Constitution gives the trial power to the Senate. That case was about trial procedure, not what counts as impeachable. Still, it shows how reluctant courts are to second-guess Congress here.

So the working definition is the one Rep. Gerald Ford gave during a failed 1970 attempt to impeach Justice William O. Douglas. An impeachable offense, he said, is "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." Ford's line leaves out the Senate, though. Removing someone still takes two-thirds of the senators present.

How has Congress applied it to Cabinet members?

Only twice, and neither ended in a conviction.

William Belknap, 1876. The Secretary of War was impeached over kickbacks from people he appointed to run frontier trading posts. That's classic corruption, the kind of thing the phrase has always covered. He had already resigned, but the Senate tried him anyway. A majority voted to convict, which fell short of the two-thirds needed.

Alejandro Mayorkas, 2024. The House impeached the Homeland Security Secretary for dereliction of duty, not corruption. The two articles charged him with failing to comply with federal immigration law and breaching the public trust. In April 2024 the Senate spent about three hours on them. Democrats then voted that each article was unconstitutional because it didn't allege a high crime or misdemeanor. Those 51-49 party-line votes ended the trial.

For Hegseth, the Mayorkas case is the closest precedent. A Senate majority effectively decided that articles built on a policy dispute didn't meet the standard. But it was a party-line vote, not a reasoned ruling on what the phrase means. It's unclear whether a future Senate would feel bound by it.

Where do the Hegseth articles fit?

On new ground. Articles I through III accuse Hegseth of starting and continuing the Iran war in violation of the War Powers Resolution. They point to a June 2026 measure, passed by both chambers, ordering U.S. forces out of hostilities with Iran. Article IV accuses him of dismantling systems Congress required for reducing civilian casualties. The articles conclude that he "acted in a manner grossly incompatible with his duties and the rule of law."

Those charges sound like the old English categories: violating the law, abusing power, failing in one's duties. They don't sound like bribery or a statutory crime. No Senate has ever decided whether a War Powers violation, or carrying out a president's order that Congress considers unlawful, is a high crime or misdemeanor. The House has never impeached anyone on that basis.

The other side disputes the facts as well as the label. The administration says Iran hostilities had ended by May 1, 2026, when the War Powers Resolution's 60-day window ran out. Hegseth told senators that a ceasefire pauses the clock. He calls the charges "sham articles of impeachment."

Massie takes a broad view. He told reporters that impeachment "is just firing someone, really." That's close to the standard Madison rejected when he warned against officials serving at the Senate's pleasure. Another delegate at the 1787 Convention, Charles Pinckney, warned of the opposite danger: that Congress might remove a President who opposed a favorite law "under the influence of heat and faction." Both worries were part of the debate that produced the phrase.

Whether the House adopts the articles, and whether a Senate trial follows, was still unknown when this was written. CBS called the vote's outcome uncertain. If the articles reach the Senate, senators will once again be deciding what "high crimes and misdemeanors" means.