Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested military service members shouldn’t follow “unlawful orders” in a recently unearthed 2016 speech that closely mirrors the recent remarks by a group of Democratic lawmakers he has criticized as treasonous.
President Trump’s Pentagon chief was captured on tape telling a conservative policy forum that the American military was better than others because service members are trained not to follow orders that violate the rules of war from the commander in chief or anyone else, a video published by CNN revealed.
“If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that,” Hegseth said in the video. “That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander in chief.”
“There’s a standard, there’s an ethos, there’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do,” Hegseth added in the speech to the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, referring to the. U.S. military code of conduct.
Hegseth’s remarks, which the Pentagon defended as “uncontroversial,” echo the joint video posted on social media last month by Navy veteran and ex-astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D- Arizona) and five fellow Democratic lawmakers who are also military or national security agency veterans.
Kelly and the Democrats warned active duty service members that they should not follow unconstitutional edicts from Trump or others, saying “no one has to follow illegal orders.”
Trump lashed out at the Democratic lawmakers, accusing them of treason and emphasizing that treason has historically been punishable by death. Hegseth accused them of “seditious” conduct.
The retired Navy pilot said Hegseth’s previous remarks were “the same as ours” and said Hegseth was only flip-flopping to curry favor with Trump.
“We have an unqualified secretary of defense who only cares about sucking up to this president,” Kelly told CNN. “What we said was uncontroversial. The White House sort of confirmed that. They said, ‘his uncontroversial remarks.’ They were the same as ours.”
Neither Kelly nor the other Democrats have said if they were referring to any particular orders or military operations that could be illegal.
The Trump administration has been hit with several lawsuits over its use of National Guard and active duty military to bolster his crackdown on undocumented immigrants on the streets of American cities.
Lawmakers from both parties have also raised major questions about the legality of Trump’s campaign of strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that has killed scores of people the Pentagon accuses of being drug traffickers.
A Sept. 2 attack has raised special concern because reports say U.S. forces carried out a second attack that killed two people who survived an initial strike, an action that critics call a potential war crime.
Hegseth has sought to deflect questions about the “second tap” attack, defending the order for a follow-up strike but passing the buck to a top Navy admiral he says made the call. Lawmakers plan a probe of the controversial incident that could force Hegseth and other top brass to testify under oath.
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