"In a post on X, Hegseth announced that Kelly was being demoted for a video from November. He and five other Democratic lawmakers who had been service members or intelligence officers reiterated the principle that members of the military do not have to follow unlawful orders. This is a banal statement of law, one that Hegseth himself has made publicly in years past. And Kelly had good reason to warn against abuses of military power."
"Donald Trump, after all, has deployed federal agents and military units to American cities-apparently as a kind of punishment for being liberal-and openly speculated about using "some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military." The time may come when service members are commanded to murder fellow citizens on the president's orders, and they should know that they can refuse to do so."
"'It's dead on arrival,' Gene Fidell, an expert on the Uniform Code of Military Justice who teaches at Yale Law, told me. 'If this ever gets in front of a judge, the judge is going to say, 'Fuck you.''"
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced an effort to demote Sen. Mark Kelly post-retirement over a November video reiterating that service members do not have to follow unlawful orders. Legal experts predict any demotion attempt would fail in court. The move appears intended to intimidate veterans and active-duty members, especially those lacking public platforms, by threatening pensions and financial security. Kelly warned about potential abuses after federal agents and military units were deployed to U.S. cities and after speculation about using dangerous cities as military training grounds. Nothing in Kelly's video violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Read at The Atlantic
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