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As a Fox News personality, Pete Hegseth repeatedly asserted that U.S. service members were obligated to resist the unlawful orders of would-be President Donald Trump.
Hegseth now serves as Trump’s Secretary of Defense Slogans against Democratic members of Congress And at least one sitting senator is being threatened with being dragged military tribunal To give a similar message.
And before serving as Trump’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Pam Bondi had similarly argued that military officers should disobey unlawful orders.
his statements stand in stark contrast Trump administration’s threats to members of Congress who warned US troops Following “illegal orders” As the Secretary of Defense faces increasing legal scrutiny He drew criticism from international groups and both Democratic and Republican members of Congress for his alleged orders to leave no one alive in a deadly campaign against suspected drug traffickers.
Those lawmakers, all of whom have military or intelligence backgrounds, now face questioning by the FBI and Justice Department.
In 2016, then-candidate Trump faced widespread criticism for his suggestion that the US military should revive banned forms of torture and “take out” the families of suspected terrorists, which legal experts and former officials argued would constitute a war crime.
“I got some feedback from veterinarians saying, no, you won’t follow that order if it’s illegal,” Hegseth said during an appearance in March 2016. Fox & Friends.
“The military will not obey illegal orders,” Hegseth said during an appearance on Fox Business that month.
The revived clip was exposed by CNN’s KFile. It follows the Trump administration’s threatening messages to six members of Congress, who warned against military personnel being “threats to our Constitution” coming “from here home.”
A video from lawmakers last month urged soldiers to ignore “illegal orders” and commit to their oath to the Constitution, but did not point to any specific actions they considered illegal. But the statement comes after the deployment of the National Guard to US cities and the extrajudicial killings of more than 80 alleged drug traffickers on boats in Pacific and Caribbean waters.
In response, Hegseth threatened to recall Senator Mark Kelly to active duty to face court-martial proceedings. The FBI is also questioning lawmakers about his comments, while Trump called him a “traitor” who “should be in jail right now” and vented anger against him in a series of Truth Social statements in the days after his video.
He wrote, “Treasonous behaviour, punishable by death!”
Trump also reposted several messages from Truth Social users, including one that demanded the President “hang him” with comments such as “George Washington will!!”
But in his Fox comments and other appearances Former Army National Guard officer Hegseth, chosen to lead the massive Defense Department that manages the nation’s armed forces and more than 3 million personnel, stressed that no service member would ever follow unlawful orders from the president.
“Here’s the problem with Trump,” Hegseth said in an appearance on then-Fox personality Megyn Kelly’s show in March 2016.
“He says, ‘Go ahead and kill the family. Go ahead and torture. Go ahead and even go ahead with waterboarding,'” he said. “What happens when people follow those orders, or don’t follow them? It’s not clear that Donald Trump would support them.”
“Trump often talks about Donald Trump,” Hegseth said.
“If you’re not changing the law and just saying it, you create even more ambiguity,” he said.
In response to questions about the resurfaced statements, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told CNN that “the military already has clear procedures for dealing with unlawful orders, but treasonous Democrats created ambiguity and failed to cite a single example because all of President Trump’s actions have been lawful.”
“Instead, these lawmakers cast doubt on the clear chain of command, which is reckless, dangerous and deeply irresponsible for an elected official,” he said.
While supporting Trump’s push for “immunity” from criminal prosecution at the Supreme Court last year, Bondi sought to address a statement by one of then-candidate Trump’s lawyers, who had argued that Trump, as president, There should not be criminal prosecution for ordering the murder of a political opponent.
Bondi sought to rein in the statement, saying “the military will not follow a clearly unlawful order from the President to hit non-military targets.”
“In fact, service members are expected not to do this,” she wrote.
He said, “A president cannot order a specific military unit to kill a political opponent and members of the military are expected not to carry out such an unlawful order.” “It would be a crime to do so.”
Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who joined five other lawmakers in the video statement, said that the president’s response and the use of the FBI against him is “exactly why we made the video.”
“He believes in using the federal government against his perceived opponents and he is not afraid to use the weapons of government against those with whom he disagrees. He does not believe the law applies to him,” he said in a statement.
Trump is “using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress,” according to a joint statement from Representatives Jason Crow, Chris DeLuzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan, who joined last week’s video message.
“No amount of threats or harassment will stop us from doing our job and respecting our Constitution,” they said in a joint statement. “We took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to live up to it. We will not be intimidated. We will never abandon ship.”