{"id":564557,"date":"2026-02-04T01:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/564557\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:27:18","slug":"judge-seems-dubious-of-pentagons-legal-basis-for-censuring-mark-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/564557\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge seems dubious of Pentagon’s legal basis for censuring Mark Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge said Tuesday that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon\u2019s censuring of a sitting U.S. senator<\/a> who joined a videotaped plea for troops to resist unlawful orders<\/a> from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mark Kelly<\/a> had a front-row seat in a courtroom as his attorneys urged U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to block the Pentagon from punishing the Arizona Democrat, a retired U.S. Navy pilot. Leon didn\u2019t immediately rule from the bench on Kelly\u2019s claims that Pentagon officials violated his First Amendment free speech rights.<\/p>\n

But the judge appeared to be skeptical of key arguments that a government attorney made in defense of Kelly\u2019s Jan. 5 censure<\/a> from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re asking me to do something the Supreme Court has never done,\u201d the judge told Justice Department attorney John Bailey. \u201cIsn\u2019t that a bit of a stretch?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey argued that Congress decided that retired military service members are subject to the same Uniform Code of Military Justice that applies to active-duty troops.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetirees are part of the armed forces,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThey are not separated from the services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benjamin Mizer, one of Kelly\u2019s lawyers, said they aren\u2019t aware of any ruling to support the notion that military retirees have \u201cdiminished speech rights.\u201d And he argued that the First Amendment clearly protects Kelly\u2019s speech in this case.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd any other approach would be to make new law,\u201d Mizer added.<\/p>\n

Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, said the Pentagon\u2019s actions against Kelly could have a chilling effect on \u201cmany, many other retirees who wish to voice their opinion.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge said he hopes to issue a ruling by next Wednesday. Kelly shook hands with two government attorneys after the hearing.<\/p>\n

In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition \u201cpunishable by DEATH\u201d in a social media post days later. Hegseth said Kelly\u2019s censure was \u201ca necessary process step\u201d to proceedings that could result in a demotion from the senator\u2019s retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.<\/p>\n

The 90-second video was first posted on a social media account belonging to Sen. Elissa Slotkin. Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan also appeared in the video. All of the participants are veterans of the armed services or intelligence communities.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon began investigating Kelly in late November, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment. <\/p>\n

Hegseth has said Kelly was the only one of the six lawmakers to be investigated because he is the only one who formally retired from the military and still falls under the Pentagon\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A federal judge said Tuesday that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":564558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[3881,5643,11029,246237,246236,246238,356,12785,84,69,59975,57,3755,52966,246234,23515,129694,7250,8132,50,6986,80,246235,235115,25731,61,67,370,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-564557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-ap-top-news","10":"tag-arizona","11":"tag-az-state-wire","12":"tag-benjamin-mizer","13":"tag-chris-deluzio","14":"tag-chrissy-houlahan","15":"tag-courts","16":"tag-dc-wire","17":"tag-district-of-columbia","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-elissa-slotkin","20":"tag-general-news","21":"tag-george-w-bush","22":"tag-jason-crow","23":"tag-john-bailey","24":"tag-journalism","25":"tag-maggie-goodlander","26":"tag-mark-kelly","27":"tag-military-and-defense","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-pete-hegseth","30":"tag-politics","31":"tag-richard-j-leon","32":"tag-send-to-apple-news","33":"tag-u-s-department-of-defense","34":"tag-u-s-news","35":"tag-united-states","36":"tag-united-states-government","37":"tag-unitedstates","38":"tag-us","39":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}