Every Democrat on the the Senate Armed Services Committee, with the exception of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), has expressed their “serious concerns” to Navy Secretary John Phelan over his review of the Arizona Democrat’s conduct, pressing him to drop the probe.
Kelly, a retired Navy captain, is one of six lawmakers who last month released a video telling service members to disobey “illegal orders.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was reviewing “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, ordering Phelan to investigate “potentially unlawful comments” made by Kelly in the Nov. 18 video. A review of the complaint against Kelly is due to Hegseth on Wednesday.
“The military already has clear procedures for handling unlawful orders. It does not need political actors injecting doubt into an already clear chain of command,” Hegseth wrote in a post on the social platform X.
The 12 Democrats, however, call the probe “an outright, brazen abuse of power” that amounts “to a purely political exercise seeking to threaten legitimate and lawful actions by a duly elected Senator, and politicize our military justice system,” according to the letter.
Kelly, along with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Democratic Reps. Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Jason Crow (Colo.), directly addressed active-duty military and intelligence personnel in a video shared to X, saying, “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.”
Trump quickly responded with fury, calling the lawmakers “traitors” who should be imprisoned and accused them of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” in a Nov. 20 post to his Truth Social platform.
Administration officials have also suggested Kelly could be asked back to active duty and court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“The theory that a sitting Member of Congress should be subject to disciplinary action entirely unrelated to their service, particularly for simply restating the law as articulated in the UCMJ . . . sets an incredibly dangerous precedent,” the lawmakers wrote to Phelan in their Tuesday letter.
Kelly has remained defiant, telling attendees at a Dec. 5 town hall event in Tucson that he believes Hegseth “is just going to take a hike” on a court-martial.
“It’s certainly unconstitutional,” Kelly said. “They’re not serious people and I’m not backing down.”
Kelly also last week said he had not been contacted by the Pentagon or others in the administration and hadn’t heard anything beyond the public social media postings by Trump and Hegseth.
In their letter, the senators point to those social media posts and public comments made by Trump and Hegseth as proof the review is “baseless and patently political.”
“While the Department’s official statement suggests that the ‘review’ will be conducted ‘ensuring due process and impartiality,’ the President and his subordinates have made fair proceedings impossible,” the letter states.
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