The Defense Department is “escalating” its probe of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a retired Navy pilot who participated in a video that urged U.S. military service members to disobey “illegal orders.”
Kelly is now the subject of a “command investigation” for his participation in the imprudent video. He is accused of inciting insubordination, or worse, mutiny, among service members.
In response, Kelly escalated his war of words against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump. He accused them of persecuting him for telling service members something they already know.
Video, Reactions
Legal trouble began for the retired Navy captain, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, after he joined five far-left Democrats to warn military members they had better disobey “illegal orders.”
Titled “Don’t Give Up The Ship,” the video features Democrats alternatively telling service members that the Trump “administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”
As well, they said:
You all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.
Trump immediately denounced the six as seditious, and former high-ranking officers roasted Kelly, as did Medal of Honor recipient and former Marine Dakota Meyer.
The Defense Department warned that it could recall Kelly to active duty to face a court martial, citing 18 U.S. Code 2387 — “activities affecting armed forces generally.” That code applies to anyone who “advises, counsels, urges, or in any manner causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States; or [who] distributes or attempts to distribute any written or printed matter which advises, counsels, or urges insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military or naval forces of the United States.”
Defending the video, CIA Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan preposterously invoked images of Nazis on trial at Nuremberg during an interview with ABC News.
Kelly defended himself by calling Hegseth “unqualified.”
“We have a president who doesn’t understand the Constitution, who installed an unqualified secretary of defense,” Kelly said on CNN:
I can’t think of a single SecDef in U.S. history less qualified than Pete Hegseth. He should’ve been fired after Signal-gate.
He said the same thing on Meet The Press, but couldn’t cite any illegal orders from the administration or military leaders.
Command Investigation
But now, Kelly could be faced with hiring an attorney.
“DOD says it is ‘escalating’ its review into Sen Mark Kelly ‘to an official command investigation,’” Punchbowl News’s Briana Reilly reported yesterday. Reilly relayed a Pentagon statement on X:
The Office of the Secretary of War, in conjunction with the Department of War’s Office of the General Counsel, is escalating the preliminary review of Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.), to an official Command Investigation. Retired Captain Kelly is currently under investigation for serious allegations of misconduct. Further official comments will be limited to preserve the integrity of the proceedings.
Command investigations “are used by the Navy/Marine Corps in certain circumstances to gather facts and make appropriate formal findings and recommendations,” a military defense law firm says. Though officials can initiate an investigation for myriad reasons, the first listed by the law firm is this: “When a member of the Navy/Marine Corps is suspected of misconduct.”
That is the allegation against Kelly, who is accused of instigating insubordination and possibly mutiny.
Kelly’s Response
The retired Navy pilot replied characteristically to the news.
“It should send a shiver down the spine of every patriotic American that the president and secretary of defense would abuse their power to come after me or anyone this way,” he said:
It wasn’t enough for Donald Trump to say I should be hanged. It wasn’t enough for Pete Hegseth to threaten me with a court-martial. Now are threatening everything I fought and served for across 25 years in the U.S navy — all because I repeated something every service member is taught.
Hegseth is “recklessly unqualified,” Kelly continued, who will use a “corrupt process” to punish him.
No Illegal Orders
At this writing, neither Kelly nor his five fellow travelers have identified “illegal orders.”
Wrote Medal of Honor recipient Meyer, “No such order has been given.”
The video, he said, is a “a quiet insertion of doubt into the minds of the one group of Americans who cannot afford doubt:
The men and women who hold the line.
This type of rhetoric plants a subtle but dangerous seed:
“Maybe you shouldn’t trust your chain of command.”
“Am I doing the right thing?”
That is how you crack the foundation of the American military — not through force, but through confusion.
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