Some crimes are so easy to understand that even Pete Hegseth could understand them in his heaviest drinking days.
As the now Secretary of Defense told a conservative forum in 2016, it's essential that the U.S. military refuses to follow unlawful orders:
If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There’s a standard. There's an ethos. There's a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.
Today, Hegseth stands credibly accused of the same war crime for which the Allies executed U-boat commander Heinz Eck and others in 1945.
Senior Republicans agree with Democrats — and 2016 Pete Hegseth — that the accusations, if true, would constitute the kind of "unlawful orders" Democrats recently warned about in a viral video. That video seemed to panic Hegseth and the Trump Administration even more than the Signalgate scandal. (But there may be more Signalgate panic ahead. The results of an internal Pentagon review on that major national security scandal are expected to be released tomorrow).
Hegseth famously attacked the military’s “stupid rules of engagement” in a speech to America's top generals in September 2025.
But now, amid the bipartisan backlash to reports of Hegseth's illegal order, both "Cadet Bone Spurs" and tough guy "Kegseth," the men at the top of the chain-of-command, are displaying the standard-issue cowardice we expect from today's GOP:
- Trump is disavowing all knowledge of Hegseth's alleged "kill everybody"order.
- Hegseth is changing his original chest-thumping "I watched it live" story to "actually, I had another meeting."
- Both Trump and Hegseth are now "selling out" Adm Frank M Bradley, and blaming him for any war crimes that may have happened under their command.
Meanwhile, few in Congress appear willing to contradict GOP Senator Rand Paul when he says that Hegseth — a man who had to promise to stop drinking on the job before being confirmed to lead the Pentagon — is either lying or incompetent.
Adm Frank M Bradley will provide a classified briefing to Congress on Thursday 4 December.
The Wall Street Journal is demanding Hegseth testify under oath to Congress.
A group of former military lawyers — the Former JAGs Working Group — is already on record saying that "both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."
And even 2016 Pete Hegseth agrees that if did indeed issue an order that was "just completely unlawful and ruthless," there should be "a consequence for that."
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