Summary
- Pete Hegseth criticized military Judge Advocates General (JAGs).
- Accused JAGs of prioritizing political correctness over combat.
- Fired top JAG officers seen as obstacles to orders.
He is now acting on those sentiments in his role as the recently renamed "Secretary of War" at the Pentagon, taking action to lessen the impact of those attorneys or remove them completely from decision-making as his department launches contentious deployments to American cities and unprovoked attacks on suspected drug smuggling vessels.
Several senior commanders who had previously headed the legal departments of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force have since been fired by Hegseth, frequently after they expressed reservations about Trump administration policies in their legal advice.
Lt. Gen. Joe Berger, the Army's highest uniformed lawyer in the past, was one such commander.
According to reports, Berger questioned Hegseth's early decisions after taking office in January, including the legality of using Texas National Guard members for civilian immigration enforcement and the mass firings that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency carried out early in the Trump administration.
Berger was urged to "stop meddling" or ignored completely in both cases in favor of Pentagon civilian attorneys, who are political appointments much more likely to capitulate to whatever the administration's inclinations may be at the moment.
After being accused by the right-wing social media account LibsOfTikTok of not fulfilling administration directives to terminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives throughout the federal government, Hegseth sacked him in February.
“Decapitating those organizations ... was an easy way for Hegseth to send a strong message from the outset and put the entire JAG corps on notice,”
a defense official said.
The former Fox News pundit's words and deeds align with a worldview he had been articulating since he first came into the public eye as a conservative activist following his time in the Army during the American invasion of Iraq.
As Hegseth recounted in his book The War on Warriors, JAG officers in Iraq once instructed him not to shoot at someone brandishing a rocket-propelled grenade launcher unless the weapon was “pointed at you with the intent to fire."
He then claimed that he had informed his commanding troops that the military lawyer's order was a "bullshit rule that's going to get people killed."
Hegseth also grieved in the book over being told to free
"Iraqi men who we knew had American blood on their hands."
However, CNN was also informed by "current and former officials familiar with Hegseth's thinking" that the War Secretary's contempt for the military's JAG corps is a result of a war crimes investigation into his unit that resulted in a reprimand for his commanding officer.
Several individuals Hegseth had served with were also given lengthy prison terms as a result of the investigation for their involvement in a 2006 incident that claimed the lives of four unarmed Iraqi men.
Years later, Hegseth would utilize his role as a Fox News commentator to support a number of military personnel who had been charged with or found guilty of war crimes, leading to President Donald Trump pardoning them.
He began by lowering the level needed for all top uniformed attorneys in the armed forces from three-star officer to two-star.
Because officers at the two-star rank are frequently excluded from top-level decision-making by the three- and four-star generals they are supposed to advise, a senior defense official told the television network that this change has the effect of demoting those officers to second-tier status.
Additionally, it has been reported that Hegseth has screened candidates for political loyalty during the interview process for replacing the fired top JAG officers by asking them about their views on contentious issues like the Biden administration's vaccine mandates or allowing transgender service members to stay in uniform.
“Hegseth’s rhetoric and policies are perceived as a bit unhinged and counterproductive, but the way forward is just to eat it and put your head down and act in accordance with his new policies,”
said one current Army lawyer.
“No JAG is trying to rock the boat or get noticed.”