Left: President Donald Trump speaks at his Mar-a-Lago club, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla., as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens (AP Photo/Alex Brandon). Right: Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., refutes efforts by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to intimidate him and other lawmakers after expressing concerns over U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean, during a news conference at the Capitol, in Washington, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite).
After President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cast him as a sedition artist and traitorous disgrace to the military deserving of a hit to his retirement pay for speaking out with fellow Democrats against the administration”s series of lethal boat strikes on alleged drug smugglers in international waters, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., has filed a federal lawsuit alleging “unlawful and unconstitutional” retaliation on the part of the executive.
The retired Navy captain and Arizona Democrat’s lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names Hegseth, the Pentagon, the Navy, and Navy Secretary John Phelan as defendants, and asks a federal judge to declare the administration’s response to him saying military members can and should “refuse illegal orders” is itself an “unlawful” violation of the First Amendment and the Speech of Debate Clause.
In mid-November, Kelly was one of six Democratic lawmakers to participate in a video addressing “members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.” For his part, Kelly said “our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.”
We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.
The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.
Don’t give up the ship. pic.twitter.com/N8lW0EpQ7r
— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) November 18, 2025
Kelly’s suit stated that the senator was articulating a “plain statement of blackletter law” under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
“The UCMJ subjects service members to courts-martial if they ‘violate[] or fail[] to obey any lawful general order or regulation.’ The Rules for Courts-Martial therefore provide: ‘It is a defense to any offense that the accused was acting pursuant to orders unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful,'” the lawsuit said. “The UCMJ underscores that, although orders from superior officers are presumed lawful, ‘[t]his inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.'”
Despite this, the lawsuit went on, Trump and Hegseth “branded” Kelly as a traitor to the nation he served over 25 years “in multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions during the First Gulf War as a naval aviator, and four space shuttle flights at NASA, including commanding the final flight of Endeavour.”
First Trump responded on Truth Social by saying on Nov. 20 of the Democrats in the video, “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.”
Then the president in follow-up posts added, “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???” and “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
After Kelly responded by calling those remarks “dangerous,” noting that his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords survived a gunshot to the head and an “act of political violence” in 2011, the president again posted that the “TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW[.]”
Kelly’s suit, claiming he received “numerous death threats” in the aftermath of the president’s words, recounted that Hegseth then responded by calling him a part of the “Seditious Six” and opened an investigation into “serious allegations of misconduct” threatening “further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”
One week ago, the complaint went on, Hegseth stated in a “Secretarial Letter of Censure” that Kelly “undermined the chain of command,” “counseled disobedience,” and engaged in “conduct unbecoming an officer,” actions that could lead to a reduction in his retirement rank and pay grade 15 years after Kelly’s retirement.
These actions, and the additional threat of “criminal prosecution or further administrative action” if Kelly similarly speaks out again, “trample on protections the Constitution singles out as essential to legislative independence” and “raise serious constitutional concerns […] subject[ing] all of the nation’s retired veterans to an ever-present threat against their retirement,” the suit said, seeking permanent injunctive relief.
“The Constitution does not leave such injuries to be remedied after the fact. Speech or Debate, First Amendment, separation-of-powers, and due-process protections must be vindicated at the outset, before the Senator is forced to submit to an unconstitutional and legally baseless proceeding,” the lawsuit concluded.
Read the full complaint here.
