Nearly a week after several Democratic military veterans urged service members to reject illegal orders, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced an investigation, but only into one of the six members. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a decorated Navy veteran, was the only member of the group who retired as a captain and served long enough to receive a pension.
As a result, the senator is not only still required to follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but he can also be punished in a variety of ways: The Pentagon could lower his rank, target his pension or, as Hegseth emphasized earlier this week, recall Kelly to active service in order to face a court-martial.
Of course, any of these steps would be ridiculous given the circumstances — all Kelly did was remind service members to follow the law and the UCMJ — but the Pentagon’s investigation is moving ahead anyway. The defense secretary on Tuesday gave the Navy secretary a Dec. 10 deadline on the outcome of the review.
Over the course of the next two weeks, common sense suggests the matter will evaporate, in part because the senator didn’t do anything wrong, in part because building any kind of credible case against Kelly would be practically impossible and in part because the administration likely knows that any effort to take the investigation to a more serious level would inevitably fail.
In the meantime, however, the Arizonan is picking up some political support from unexpected sources: congressional Republicans. The Hill reported:
Republican Sens. John Curtis (Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) backed fellow Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), amid a Pentagon probe into ‘serious allegations of misconduct’ against the senator after he and five other Democratic lawmakers told service members to disobey illegal orders from the Trump administration.
Murkowski, in particular, said in a statement, “To accuse him [Kelly] and other lawmakers of treason and sedition for rightfully pointing out that servicemembers can refuse illegal orders is reckless and flat-out wrong. … The Department of Defense and FBI surely have more important priorities than this frivolous investigation.”
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, an Air Force veteran, offered mild criticisms of the Democratic veterans’ video from last week — he called it “unnecessary” — but he went on to characterize the Trump administration’s allegations as “crazy.”
Specifically referencing Hegseth, Bacon added: “Amateur hour once again at the Department of Defense.”
As for the broader political implications, Punchbowl News reported this week that Hegseth’s offensive against Kelly might ultimately prove to be a “political gift” for the Arizona Democrat.
“A fundraising juggernaut, Kelly raised $86.2 million for his 2022 reelection bid,” the report noted. “But a high-profile clash with the administration is sure to further juice contributions from a Democratic base hungry for politicians more aggressively standing up to Trump.”
