Hegseth gets the JAGs off his back ahead of push into cities as Pentagon hobbles lawyers who raise concerns

As a Fox News commentator and author, Pete Hegseth spent years railing against the military’s Judge Advocates General — experts in military law who advise commanders on rules of engagement and laws of war — by accusing them of hamstringing troops in the name of political correctness.

In his position atop the Pentagon as the newly renamed “Secretary of War,” he is now acting on those feelings by taking steps to reduce the influence of those lawyers or cut them entirely out of decision-making as his department embarks on controversial deployments to American cities and unprovoked strikes on alleged drug smuggling craft.

According to CNN, Hegseth has now sacked multiple top officers across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force who previously led those services’ legal branches — often after they gave legal advice that included concerns about Trump administration policies.

One such officer was Lt. Gen. Joe Berger, formerly the Army’s top uniformed attorney.

Berger reportedly raised questions about a series of early decisions Hegseth made after being sworn in this past January, including the legality of using Texas National Guard personnel for civilian immigration enforcement and the mass firings carried out early in the Trump administration by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.

In both instances, Berger was either told to “stop meddling” or was ignored entirely in favor of Pentagon civilian lawyers — political appointees far more likely to bend to whatever the administration’s whims might be at the time.

Hegseth fired him in February after the right-wing social media account LibsOfTikTok accused him of refusing to carry out administration mandates to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government. He also fired the Air Force’s top uniformed attorney, a three-star general named Charles Plummer.

At the time, Hegseth told reporters both officers had been “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander-in-chief.”

But Pentagon veterans saw the move as a message to obey without question — or else.

“Decapitating those organizations ... was an easy way for Hegseth to send a strong message from the outset and put the entire JAG corps on notice,” a defense official said.

The former Fox News commentator’s remarks and actions are consistent with a worldview he’d been expressing since entering public life as a conservative activist after serving in the Army during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In his book The War on Warriors, Hegseth described how he was once told by JAG officers in Iraq to avoid firing at a person carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher unless the weapon was “pointed at you with the intent to fire.”

He later wrote that he’d told the soldiers under his command that the military lawyer’s directive was a “bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed.”

In the same book, Hegseth also complained that he had been ordered to release “Iraqi men who we knew had American blood on their hands” because “the jagoff lawyers told us we had to do it.”

But “current and former officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking” also told CNN that the War Secretary’s disdain for the military’s JAG corps stems from a war crimes investigation into his unit that ended with his commanding officer being reprimanded.

The investigation also resulted in several people Hegseth had served with receiving significant jail sentences for misconduct surrounding an incident in 2006 that resulted in four unarmed Iraqi men losing their lives.

Years later, Hegseth would use his position as a Fox News host to advocate for several service members who’d been accused or convicted of war crimes, resulting in them receiving pardons from President Donald Trump.

Now, as Secretary of War, foirmerly known as Secretary of Defense but unofficially changed by Hegseth and Trump, he is using his power to push the JAG corps out of the rooms where decisions are made.

To start, he has reduced the rank required for each of the armed services top uniformed lawyers from that of a three-star officer to a two-star.

According to a senior defense official who spoke to the television network, the effect of this change is to relegate those officers to second-tier status because officers at the two-star rank often are not involved in top-level decision-making by the three and four-star generals who they are theoretically tasked with advising.

Hegseth has also reportedly used the interview process for replacing the fired top JAG officers to screen candidates for political loyalty by asking questions about their opinions on charged topics such as the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates or allowing transgender service members to remain in uniform.

Officials told CNN the interviews were “political litmus tests” which have made officers hesitant to offer advice that contradicts the administration's desired outcomes.

“Hegseth’s rhetoric and policies are perceived as a bit unhinged and counterproductive, but the way forward is just to eat it and put your head down and act in accordance with his new policies,” said one current Army lawyer. “No JAG is trying to rock the boat or get noticed.”