When a group of Democratic military veterans who serve in Congress released an ad last week urging service members to refuse orders if they are illegal, the Trump administration could have deployed an obvious defense: What are you talking about? We’re not issuing or planning any illegal orders.
Instead, the administration has opted for a rebuttal that is considerably more self-incriminating. President Donald Trump swiftly took to social media to call out these lawmakers for “seditious behavior” that is “punishable by death.” “It is insurrection,” charged White House adviser Stephen Miller. “It’s a general call for rebellion.”
In light of the administration’s undeclared military campaign in the Caribbean, which has included extralegal strikes against boats that are allegedly smuggling drugs, it might have made sense to let this controversy die down. Instead, Pete Hegseth’s self-styled Department of War took to X on Monday to announce that Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and one of the Democrats who appeared in the ad, will be investigated for a possible court martial owing to “serious allegations of misconduct.” The post goes on to remind military retirees that they are still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits “actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces.”
It bears noting that the ad does not call for ignoring legal orders. It’s merely a public-service announcement reminding members of the military and the intelligence community of their rights to avoid implication in crimes. The ad can be interpreted as a call for rebellion only if the orders coming from above are in fact illegal.
The problem is that the president seems to think that an action is just as long as he calls for it. Trump ran for office in 2016 openly and repeatedly calling for the military to illegally torture prisoners for intelligence purposes. “If I say ‘do it,’ they’re going to do it,” he insisted. Though he later conceded that the U.S. is in fact bound by “laws and treaties,” he regularly pardoned service members in his first term who were credibly accused or convicted of war crimes, often against the advice of his own military leadership.
In 2019 Trump reportedly told the head of Customs and Border Patrol that he would pardon him for any crimes he committed in service of his immigration enforcement agenda. He has devoted much of his second term to making good on promises to pardon allies imprisoned for crimes committed in his service. Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department, publicly articulated this attitude when he claimed, “No MAGA left behind.”
[Jonathan Chait: Trump’s Campaign of Vengeance Is Already Backfiring]
In Hegseth, Trump has found a willing partner. In his book, “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth argues that the military should enjoy a wide berth to commit war crimes. He came away from his time at Guantanamo Bay firm in the belief that people detained by the military do not deserve due process, and dismisses “the debate about the ‘rights’ of assholes (I mean, ‘detainees’) at Gitmo.” Hegseth goes on to mock the notion that wars should follow rules: “Our enemies should get bullets, not attorneys.”
In sum, the ad’s premise—that the Trump administration’s commitment to the law is less than unshakable—is well-founded.
Why the administration has responded so hysterically to this ad is obvious. Trump and Hegseth do not merely believe that they should be free to give illegal orders and that the rank and file should have to follow them. They are also keen to use the power of the state to suppress political dissent.
In his first term, Trump was rebuffed by top military officials when he asked the military to shoot peaceful protesters. In his second term, he has placed the Defense Department under Hegseth, whose only qualification is a fanatical partisan loyalty. Hegseth has proceeded to carry out a purge that is driving out suspected non-loyalists, stripping the military of talent and sending a message to remaining officers that the faintest signs of political disloyalty could end their careers.
Trump’s purge of the armed forces and his l’etat, c’est moi approach to the law all spring from a single impulse to merge the state with his own interests. An ad instructing members of the military that they serve the United States and its Constitution, and don’t have to act like Donald Trump’s capos, strikes at the heart of his ethos. His demand to punish anybody who merely endorses the Constitution vindicates the charge that he is the document’s greatest enemy.
The post Hegseth’s Self-Incriminating Response to a Democratic Ad appeared first on The Atlantic.
