Resurfaced Hegseth video intensifies clash over Democrats’ message on illegal military orders

U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio and other Democratic lawmakers under fire from the Trump administration for publishing a video saying service members are obligated to refuse illegal orders are further questioning the blowback in response to a 2016 video featuring current Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.

In the unearthed April 2016 video, first reported by CNN, Hegseth says refusing to follow unlawful orders is part of the military “ethos.”

“If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that,” Hegseth, an Army veteran, said at an event hosted nine years ago by the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley.

“That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There’s a standard, there’s an ethos, there’s a belief that we are above so many things that our enemies or others would do,” added Hegseth, then a Fox News contributor who had recently left his role as CEO of the nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America.

The remarks came in response to a question about servicemembers being held in the military’s maximum-security prison at Fort Leavenworth.

Fast forward to late last month, when Deluzio and five other Democratic members of Congress — all former members of the military or intelligence community — released their video.

“Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad,” Fox Chapel’s Deluzio, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served as a Navy officer, said in the video.

“Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders,” added U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, also a former Navy officer.

“You must refuse illegal orders,” Deluzio said.

In the video, the lawmakers did not identify any orders issued during the current Trump administration that they considered illegal.

President Trump and members of his administration denounced the lawmakers’ video.

Trump said on social media that the video amounted to “seditious behavior” and noted that such behavior could be punishable by death. He said the lawmakers should be arrested and put on trial, and he shared a post from another social media user saying they should be hanged.

“The video made by the ‘Seditious Six’ was despicable, reckless, and false,” added Hegseth. The Pentagon later said it planned to investigate Kelly over potential breaches of military law, and Deluzio said the FBI contacted House and Senate officials to request interviews with the six lawmakers.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the 2016 video.

Deluzio told TribLive that the FBI had not scheduled any interviews with him as of Wednesday.

“This is a clear intent by the president and those around him to intimidate the legislative branch and members of Congress, and I think a misuse of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m not going to be intimidated,” Deluzio said.

Deluzio called the administration’s response to the lawmakers’ recent video, in light of Hegseth’s 2016 remarks, “hypocrisy on display.”

“It just highlights how outrageous and out-of-bounds the response is. What Pete Hegseth said (in 2016) is not controversial. It’s something you learn in boot camp or as I did at the Naval Academy … that you obey lawful orders and that no one can force our servicemembers to follow an illegal one. That’s a bedrock principle grounded in the Constitution.”

Deluzio said the debate over the lawmakers’ illegal orders video has taken on added significance since it was released, given the increasing scrutiny of military strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.

A Sept. 2 attack in the Caribbean is now under a microscope as reports suggest that U.S. forces carried out a second attack to kill two people who were left clinging to their burning boat after surviving an initial strike. Officials have given conflicting accounts of what happened, while some critics have questioned whether the second strike violated international law.

Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, the commander in charge of the operation, was expected to speak with lawmakers in Washington this week.

“What I understand is he’s going to be in front of at least the leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services committees,” said Deluzio, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

“I think we need a full investigation. We should get to the bottom of exactly what happened,” Deluzio added. “I don’t think this has to be a political thing. It has to be about finding out what happened and who knew what. I want to find out who gave what orders and what the secretary (Hegseth) ordered.”