Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., on Tuesday said the Pentagon’s newly announced escalation of an investigation into him was part of an effort to deter servicemembers and government employees from speaking out against President Donald Trump.
A Defense Department official confirmed on Tuesday that the Pentagon was escalating a preliminary review of Kelly’s involvement in a video in which he urged troops to disobey unlawful orders into an “official command investigation” for “serious allegations of misconduct.”
Speaking to reporters after an all-senators briefing on counter-drug strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, Kelly said the Pentagon’s investigation into him was “bullshit” and intended to silence critics of Trump.
The November social media video on which the investigation is based also includes five other Democrats in Congress: Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire. Slotkin served in the CIA, while the others served in the armed forces.
Kelly said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mentioned the investigation into him during Tuesday’s Senate briefing.
“[Hegseth] actually brought it up in the brief, oddly. Just reiterating his talking points on this when I was specifically asking him questions about strikes — which, again, shows that this is very performative for him, even in front of a group of senators,” Kelly said.
“They don’t want other people saying these kinds of things, so they’re trying to shut people up. But in this case, they picked the wrong guy, because I’m not going to shut up about this,” Kelly added.
Hegseth did not address the investigation during brief remarks after Tuesday’s all-senators briefing.
The video became a lightning rod for criticism of the lawmakers involved, who maintained that they were not responding to a particular incident but simply restating the law.
“Right now, the threats coming to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders,” the group said in the video, which earned a ferocious rebuke from President Donald Trump, who called it “seditious behavior” of the sort that is “punishable by death.”
In his own statement last month, Hegseth wrote that Kelly was being singled out because he is technically “retired” military and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, unlike the others.
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