Air Force major arrested after calling for Trump’s impeachment on Capitol steps

U.S. Capitol Police arrested Air Force Maj. Jason Watson on the House steps in Washington, D.C., after he stood in uniform beside a sign that read Impeach Convict Remove and called for Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal. Officers took him into custody at about 1:15 p.m. local time on July 1, 2026, and cited DC Code 22-1307, Crowding, Obstructing and Incommoding.

Capitol Police said Watson had to leave once Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, walked away, because demonstrations on the House steps are allowed only when a sitting member of Congress is present. The arrest put an active-duty Air Force officer at the center of a dispute over where military discipline ends and political speech begins, especially on the grounds of the Capitol itself. Watson was described as a major with more than 20 years of military service.

Before the arrest, Watson joined a press conference with Green, Removal Coalition founder Jessica Denson, constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, Defenders of Our Republic and About Face Veterans. Denson said Watson was on leave from his post as a logistics readiness officer in Poland and had contacted the coalition in February to help organize the demonstration. The Removal Coalition has said its goal is to elevate demands to impeach and remove Trump and pressure lawmakers to act.

Watson used the event to argue that the Trump administration’s military actions against foreign countries without an emergency were an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s war powers. He said the policies he criticized had led to the deaths of 13 service members and injuries to hundreds more, and he also tied his remarks to alleged abuses by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Before officers led him away, he recited the U.S. Air Force oath of office.

Green later said Watson stood for impeachment on Capitol grounds and was then taken away. The scene carried added weight because it unfolded at the same Capitol where Jan. 6, 2021, produced 1,575 federal criminal cases tracked by NPR. Watson’s protest was separate from that attack, and organizers described it as peaceful civil disobedience, but his arrest underscored how closely military political expression, protest rules and the memory of the Capitol riot now overlap at the seat of government.