Mark Kelly Is Suing the Pentagon

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly sued the Pentagon on Monday over attempts to punish him for his warnings about illegal orders. Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy pilot, is seeking to block his censure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week, the AP reports. Hegseth announced last Monday that he censured Kelly over the Arizona senator's participation in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders. Kelly vowed last week to fight the move with "everything I've got."

• "The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech," his lawsuit says. "That prohibition applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy."

• The lawsuit says the executive branch has never before sought to impose military sanctions for "disfavored political speech," the Hill reports.
• Hegseth said the censure—by itself simply a formal letter with little practical consequence—was "a necessary process step" to proceedings that could result in a demotion from Kelly's retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.
• Hegseth's "unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the President or Secretary of Defense doesn't like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted," Kelly said in a post on social media. Hegseth "wants our longest-serving military veterans to live with the constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay years or even decades after they leave the military just because he or another Secretary of Defense doesn't like what they've said," Kelly wrote. "That's not the way things work in the United States of America, and I won't stand for it."