Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) said Democrats intend to go after cabinet secretaries they accuse of breaking the law, estimating that the party may be more likely to pursue impeachment of those officials than the president himself, according to remarks reported by Breitbart.
She also accused several members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet of blatantly violating the law and warned them to “get ready” for scrutiny.
A Different Target Than the President
Stansbury made the comments Monday on MS NOW’s “On the Line,” during a discussion with host Alicia Menendez about how Democrats should use their investigative power if they flip the House in November.
Menendez opened the segment by noting the long-running strategic debate over whether another Trump impeachment makes sense or whether it would be more effective to target members of his cabinet instead. She then played a clip of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who told Capitol Hill reporters Wednesday that impeaching cabinet members is highly underrated and predicted many of them would receive pardons at the end of their tenure.
Menendez asked Stansbury whether she agreed with Massie’s suggestion that the president might hand out pardons.
Stansbury said yes, pointing to Trump’s own comments that he plans to pardon people in his orbit. But she pushed back on the idea that Democrats should hold back from seeking accountability.
“I actually very much disagree with the idea that we shouldn’t be trying to use every tool we have in the toolbox,” she said, according to the Breitbart report.
Hegseth, Noem and Bondi Cited
Stansbury singled out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as someone even Republicans believe should be impeached, claiming his actions involved “illegal killings in the illegal war,” per the Breitbart account of the interview.
She also pointed to prior impeachment drives against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. In her telling, both were ultimately pushed out by the president because the public made clear it didn’t want them in those jobs of trust.
Those removals, she suggested, showed that pressure from Congress and voters can succeed even when the Senate is unlikely to convict.
“I think there’s a number of cabinet secretaries that have blatantly broken the law, done unconstitutional things, and I think they better get ready, because we’ll come for them,” Stansbury said, according to Breitbart.
The Massie Argument
Massie’s comments, as relayed on the program, amounted to a tactical case for going after cabinet officials rather than the president: he argued that cabinet impeachment is underrated and predicted the officials would be shielded by pardons when they leave.
That framing turns on the expectation that any Trump official facing criminal exposure could be insulated from prosecution later. Menendez asked Stansbury directly about that possibility, and Stansbury agreed with Massie’s premise while rejecting his apparent implication that another impeachment would be a misuse of Democratic time.
For Stansbury, the answer is to pursue both paths — and not let the prospect of pardons discourage Congress from acting.
A Warning Shot Ahead of the Midterms
The exchange reflects the broader debate inside the Democratic Party over what to do with a potential House majority. Some strategists have argued that another presidential impeachment would consume precious legislative time and risk political blowback, while a piecemeal focus on cabinet secretaries could produce more tangible results and avoid the same media saturation.
The comments come as the midterm elections approach, and with Democratic candidates across the country making the case that Republican governance has gone too far. Stansbury’s language was unusually direct: not simply a promise to conduct oversight, but an explicit warning that officials she considers lawbreakers should anticipate consequences.
The line that cabinet secretaries “better get ready, because we’ll come for them” is likely to be seized on by Republicans as evidence that Democrats are preparing a slate of partisan investigations rather than a policy agenda — a charge GOP candidates have already leveled in previous cycles.
Democrats counter that the allegations are substantive and that Congress has a duty to investigate officials who exceed their legal authority.
What Follows an Impeachment, and What Doesn’t
Impeaching a cabinet secretary follows the same two-step structure as impeaching a president: the House can vote to impeach by a simple majority, but removal from office requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. That threshold almost never has been met in modern times, and it would be a steep climb given that the Senate is currently in Republican hands.
That reality is why Massie’s pardon argument carries weight even among some Democrats: an impeachment that ends in a Senate acquittal still can extract months of hearings, documents and testimony — but a criminal referral that a future administration declines to pursue may go nowhere.
Stansbury’s position is that the possibility of pardons doesn’t excuse inaction, and she framed the use of every available tool as the appropriate response.
What remains unclear is whether Democratic leaders share her eagerness, and how much of a House majority would be needed to move on multiple cabinet targets at once. Those decisions would rest with committee chairs and the full Democratic caucus, not any single member.
For now, the interview offered one of the clearer signals of where at least one Democratic lawmaker wants the party to go if voters hand it the gavels.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/09/21/dem-rep-stansbury-after-midterms-were-coming-for-lawbreaking-cabinet-secretaries/