Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to reverse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s letter of censure and effort to potentially demote the retired Navy officer — sharply escalating a confrontation between the Arizona Democrat and President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief over a controversial video reminding U.S. service members they can refuse illegal orders.
In the lawsuit filed in federal court in D.C., Kelly’s lawyers argued that the Pentagon’s inquiry, and formal reprimand, unlawfully punished the senator’s free speech rights and violated his due process.
“It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member of Congress for engaging in disfavored political speech,” the lawsuit states.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, Hegseth sent a letter of censure to Kelly, criticizing what he called the senator’s “reckless misconduct” for joining five other Democratic lawmakers who had served in the U.S. military or intelligence community in filming a video that reminded service members of their duty to disobey illegal orders.
The lawmakers have said they filmed the video in response to some of the Trump administration’s legally controversial uses of the military, such as attacking alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America and deploying troops to major American cities.
Hegseth also said the Pentagon was opening a proceeding into whether Kelly’s last military rank and his pension should be reduced.
Democrats, some Republicans and many legal experts have criticized the inquiry as a specious attack on an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, who also oversees the Pentagon as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
In a statement Monday, Kelly said Hegseth’s actions would saddle other veterans with the “constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay years or even decades after they leave the military just because he or another Secretary of Defense doesn’t like what they’ve said.”
Kelly retired from the military in 2011 after serving 24 years on active duty. His career included flying fighter jets over Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and becoming an astronaut. He left the Navy several months after his wife, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona), was shot in the head during a constituent event and survived.
The lawsuit filed Monday notes that Trump — and later Hegseth — publicly labeled Kelly’s remarks “seditious” even as the defense secretary directed a board of military officers to independently determine whether Kelly should face a reduction in rank. The public comments essentially denied Kelly any chance for fair treatment and due process, the lawyers argued.
More importantly, they said in the filing, the Pentagon’s unprecedented disciplinary action would undermine an equal branch of government — where criticism from the political party out of power is essential to how American democracy functions.
Eugene Fidell, a senior research scholar and military law expert at Yale Law School, said that Trump’s and Hegseth’s statements made it almost impossible for Kelly to get a fair review by other military officers, and he expected Kelly would prevail in the case.
“The president is already on record calling Sen. Kelly a traitor; Secretary Hegseth has already shown he has prejudged this matter,” Fidell said. “I expect this will move quickly.”
Aaron Schaffer and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
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