President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief announced plans on Monday to demote U.S. Senator Mark Kelly from his rank as a retired Navy captain for alleged “reckless misconduct” after he and other Democratic lawmakers urged troops to refuse any illegal orders.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has begun proceedings that would ultimately slash Kelly’s retirement pay and attach a letter of censure to his military record. Kelly, who represents Arizona in the Senate, is a decorated military veteran and former NASA astronaut.
Kelly said he would “fight this with everything I’ve got.”
“Pete Hegseth wants to send the message to every single retired servicemember that if they say something he or Donald Trump doesn’t like, they will come after them the same way. It’s outrageous and it is wrong. There is nothing more un-American than that,” Kelly said in a statement on X.
Kelly could face additional measures in the future depending on his actions, Hegseth said in a statement on X.
The steps announced by Hegseth represent the latest actions taken by the Trump administration targeting critics of the Republican president. Democrats and other critics have accused Trump of seeking to stifle dissent.
Although extraordinary, the censure of Kelly stops short of the threat previously made by the administration to recall Kelly to active military duty status in order to prosecute him after what it described as seditious behavior.
Hegseth noted that Kelly has 30 days to respond and that the administrative process would conclude 15 days later.
“Captain Kelly’s status as a sitting United States Senator does not exempt him from accountability, and further violations could result in further action,” Hegseth wrote in his social media post.
Kelly and the other lawmakers have defended their remarks made in a November 18 video message, saying they were merely stating what U.S. law requires of troops if they are given an unlawful order.
The video message was released at a time of heightened concern among Democrats, echoed privately by some current U.S. military officials, that the administration is violating the law by ordering the U.S. military to kill suspected drug traffickers in strikes on their vessels in Latin American waters.
The Pentagon has called those strikes justified because the alleged drug smugglers are considered terrorists.
However, Hegseth said Kelly’s actions were “seditious in nature.”
Trump also has accused Kelly and the other Democrats of sedition, saying in a social media post that the crime was punishable by death. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, sedition and mutiny are among the most serious offenses and can be punishable by death.
“As a retired Navy Captain who is still receiving a military pension, Captain Kelly knows he is still accountable to military justice. And the Department of War – and the American people – expect justice,” Hegseth said, referring to the name that the administration informally has given the Department of Defense.
A formal change of the department’s name requires an act of Congress.
