Hegseth says Sen. Mark Kelly will receive administrative punishment for video about lawful orders

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Senator Kelly should sue Hegseth. Senator Kelly was repeating black letter law and will be able to use Hegseth's own words against him

Link to tweet

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hegseth-sen-mark-kelly-receive-administrative-punishment-video/story?id=128911622

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a post on X, said the Pentagon will hold Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly accountable under the military code of justice for "conduct [that] was seditious in nature," referring to a video Kelly participated in that told United States service members they have a right to refuse unlawful orders.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

[Walleye]

1. Good thing I'm not Captain Kelly. I would beat the shit out of his punk Hegseth .

They are so used to dealing with cowards in their administration. They don’t know what to do with a guy who has real courage.

[Initech]

2. Pete Hegseth is batshit fucking insane and completely drunk and mad with power.

This man needs to be fired and arrested and serve a lifetime prison sentence. This is an absolutely egregious abuse of power. There's more to this country than Donny Dipshit.

This is the United States of America. We are allowed to have free speech. We can have other opinions that aren't manufactured by Rupert Murdoch.

[roscoeroscoe]

3. You May Remember from Band of Brothers

That you can refuse non-judicial punishment and request Court Martial. I would imagine that's what Sen. Kelly will do - if this is a real thing, and not just right-wing media trash.

[Happy Hoosier]

4. He's going NJP 'cause he KNOWS that shit falls apart in any kind of court.

Kelly needs to press this HARD and humiliate Kegsbreath.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. Statement from Senator Kelly

Link to tweet

Over twenty-five years in the U.S. Navy, thirty-nine combat missions, and four missions to space, I risked my life for this country and to defend our Constitution – including the First Amendment rights of every American to speak out. I never expected that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would attack me for doing exactly that.

My rank and retirement are things that I earned through my service and sacrifice for this country. I got shot at. I missed holidays and birthdays. I commanded a space shuttle mission while my wife Gabby recovered from a gunshot wound to the head– all while proudly wearing the American flag on my shoulder. Generations of servicemembers have made these same patriotic sacrifices for this country, earning the respect, appreciation, and rank they deserve.

Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that.

If Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in our country’s history, thinks he can intimidate me with a censure or threats to demote me or prosecute me, he still doesn’t get it. I will fight this with everything I’ve got — not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.

[MineralMan]

6. Not only a "right," but a "duty" to refuse UNlawful orders.

UNLAWFUL! It's in the UCMJ, with detailed examples of orders that might be UNLAWFUL.

Headlines keep using "lawful," but that is clearly NOT what Kelly said. He said, as does the UCMJ, "UNLAWFUL orders."

Once again, the Trump administration is simply lying.

[democrank]

7. This is beyond disgraceful

I can’t even find words to describe the actions of these bottom-of-the-barrel Trump administration criminals.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. When Senator Kelly sues, he will have fun using these statements from Hegseth and Bondi

If the administration intends to investigate Democratic veterans in Congress, it should prepare equal treatment for members of the White House Cabinet.

In prior remarks, Hegseth and Bondi also said troops must disobey illegal orders - MS NOW

apple.news/AtPlYxgM_Q1S...

— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2025-12-09T17:49:00.527Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/in-prior-remarks-hegseth-and-bondi-also-said-troops-must-disobey-illegal-orders

CNN reported last week, for example, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s helped advance the partisan offensive against the Democratic veterans, delivered remarks in 2016 explaining that U.S. military personnel “won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief” and described the refusal of illegal commands as a part of the military’s ethos and standards.

CNN also found that, as Election Day 2016 drew closer, the former Fox News host told viewers that service members are “not going to follow illegal orders.”

That is to say, eight years ago, the future Pentagon chief delivered the same message he and Trump are now condemning.

Evidently, Hegseth is not alone. The New York Times reported:

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said the same thing as the [Democratic] lawmakers last year in a friend-of-the-court brief in the Supreme Court as a lawyer for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that represented three former military leaders.

In the legal brief, which is available online through the high court’s website, Bondi wrote, “Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.” The Florida Republican added, “The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill nonmilitary targets. Indeed, service members are required not to do so.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Trump administration won’t launch sedition investigations into the incumbent president’s defense secretary and attorney general, but if officials continue to pursue Democratic veterans in Congress, they should probably prepare an answer to a straightforward question: “Why aren’t you also pursuing cases against the president’s defense secretary and attorney general?”

[Emile]

9. Will Hegseth receive the same punishment?

https://youtube.com/shorts/qwpE1YUSQqI?si=YJjZ1PKJBiGDfDy3

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. MaddowBlog-'I'm never going to back down': Mark Kelly pushes back against Hegseth's intensifying crusade

The Pentagon chief is moving forward with plans to demote the senator’s military rank. The secretary may not be prepared, however, for what happens next.

‘I’m never going to back down’: Mark Kelly pushes back against Hegseth’s intensifying crusade - MS NOW

apple.news/A8Ld_5ONZSbu...

— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2026-01-06T15:20:46.352Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/mark-kelly-demotion-pete-hegseth-010626

In mid-December, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was “escalating” his crusade against Sen. Mark Kelly, launching an “official Command Investigation” into the Arizona Democrat. It was, as The Washington Post noted soon after, “an unprecedented use of the military justice system to investigate a political adversary.”

Three weeks later, the beleaguered Cabinet secretary, who presumably has more important matters on his plate, took the next step down a radical path. My MS NOW colleague Erum Salam reported:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Monday that he plans to demote the military rank of Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona after the retired Navy captain reminded those actively serving to disobey illegal orders. […]

Hegseth said he issued a ‘letter of censure’ to Kelly, calling it a first step toward a demotion and a decrease in pension. Censure is a formal disciplinary action, sometimes punitive, that can only be issued by someone in a service member’s chain of command. If successful, it can result in demotion of a service member’s rank and a reduction in their retirement pay.

For those who might have lost sight of the transgression that prompted the secretary’s crusade: Several Democratic military veterans appeared in a video, released in November, in which they urged service members to reject illegal orders. A week later, Hegseth announced an investigation into Kelly, a decorated Navy veteran. (The Arizona Democrat is the only member of the group who retired as a captain and served long enough to receive a military pension.)....

Kelly’s pushback: If Trump’s Pentagon expects Kelly to back down in the face of absurd bullying, that’s apparently not going to happen. “Here’s the thing, Rachel: I’m never going to back down from these guys,” the senator said Monday on MS NOW. “I’m going to continue to speak out. I’m going to continue to do my job and, as much as I can, highlight how wrong these people are and how outrageous this is and how dangerous.”......

Endgame: As part of the existing process, Kelly has 30 days to respond formally to Hegseth’s letter, but just as notably, assuming his demotion happens, the senator will have the option of taking the matter to the courts, to the Board for Correction of Naval Records or to both.

“If the executive branch were to move forward in any forum — criminal, disciplinary, or administrative — we will take all appropriate legal action on Senator Kelly’s behalf to halt the Administration’s unprecedented and dangerous overreach,” Kelly’s lawyer wrote in a letter to Secretary of the Navy John Phelan in December.