The backlash against 11 Democrats who missed the Nov. 10 vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is still raging after the effort embarrassingly failed in the House.
Critics say those Democrats, including Black Rep. Jonathan Jackson, helped Republicans block the effort first brought by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie in September.
Part of the anger against the Dems stems from the fact that it happened just a week after Americans swept Democrats back into control of both the Senate and the House in the midterm elections.
And had those 11 Democrats voted with their party, they could have advanced the resolution to impeach Hegseth. The measure failed 211 to 204.
Now those lawmakers are making excuses, with several claiming a traffic jam in Washington kept them from voting.
Jackson also blamed a traffic jam for missing the vote, but unlike the others, a reporter actually saw the Illinois Democrat on the steps of the Capitol with plenty of time to get into the chamber to vote.
TMZ’s Charlie Cotton accused Jackson of lying about traffic.
“I saw Jonathan Jackson on the steps. After I interviewed AOC at 5:55 p.m., and it ended a couple minutes later, on the steps, I saw him. I saw Jonathan Jackson filming a social media video about the Hegseth impeachment,” Cotton accused in a video he posted to X on Nov. 11.
“And that would have been at about 5:57, 5:58 p.m. The Hegseth impeachment vote didn’t close until 6:05 p.m. And he was on the steps, like, that’s where the vote is. Just go inside the door, you’re right there,” Cotton continued, before asking, “So what happened in that time[?]”
“I don’t know, but this traffic jam thing, it’s not the truth … He could have made the vote.”
“I just think that this traffic jam nonsense is nonsense,” he added.
Cotton goes on to say that he spoke with Jackson.
“I just got off the phone with Rep. Jackson, who agrees with my timeline and remembers seeing me, remembers talking to me. So I asked, like, well, why didn’t you make the vote then? You’re right there,” Cotton said.
Cotton says Jackson told him “it was a mistake.”
“He said it was a mistake.”
When Cotton pressed the Democrat to explain what that mistake was, Jackson refused, saying, “Mistake. Leave it at that. It’s on me.”
Cotton pointed out that “the whole traffic jam thing wasn’t the reason he didn’t vote,” but Jackson refused to explain what he was doing on the Capitol steps and why he didn’t just walk inside and vote.
“I think that’s, it’s not good enough. It’s just not good. If this guy is the war criminal you say he is, if this guy’s as dangerous to America and our soldiers out there as you claim he is, it’s gotta be better than that,” Cotton complained.
Cotton and a TMZ camera also caught up to Jackson outside the Capitol on Nov. 11, with the video showing the congressman expressing regret about missing the vote without explaining why.
Some of the other Dems who missed the vote apologized, with at least three others blaming traffic, too.
Any effort to impeach Hegseth won’t happen again until the new Congress is seated in January.
In September, Massie, a Republican who lost his seat after he was primaried by Donald Trump over his support for releasing the Epstein files and his opposition to aid to Israel, accused Hegseth of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Massie’s House Resolution listed eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth. They include declaring and waging war on Iran without Congressional approval, extrajudicial killings, ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties, and suppressing free speech, to name a few.
