Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is nearly a man on an island right now, as a lot of Republicans are running for cover to protect themselves regarding recent reporting on a controversial Sept. 2 drug boat strike.
To this point, the administration has supported Hegseth, but it has also been flipping its narrative regarding what exactly happened that day.
Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing, but I don’t think he will be able to count on Republicans for support if a growing movement to have him removed gains more momentum.
Hegseth was never someone who had the full support of the Republican caucus. He was passed through during the confirmation process more out of loyalty to Donald Trump in an effort to give the president the people he wanted, not so much as an acknowledgement of his qualifications for the job.
There is a faction of the Republican Party, in my opinion, that would love to see Hegseth removed from this post, and that seems apparent by the early rush from Republicans to investigate the Sept. 2 strike. When reports surfaced regarding an alleged second strike designed to take out any survivors of the initial hit, it created a huge problem for this administration, and, more specifically, for Hegseth.
Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has since challenged Democrats to prove that any illegal orders were issued in this realm, has wavered a bit in his hardline stance. Graham, so you know, served in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps while serving in the Air Force (as well as Guard and Reserve duty), so he is very familiar with how strike orders are run through the chain of command and through JAG officers to ensure they are legal.
Both the Senate and House Armed Services committees are ready to start an investigation. The question now is whether this is “rage bait,” as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has suggested, or if there are real teeth to these reports.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has objected to these drug boat strikes from the outset, and he is making a big move against Hegseth over the recent reports.
He recently stated, “Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium of the White House, they’re saying it did happen.”
Paul continued, “So, either he was lying to us on Sunday, or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”
I agree with Paul regarding the White House reversal, and I did a report on that yesterday, saying that it was a horrible look for both Hegseth and the administration.
Get used to hearing the term "war crimes," because it is going to be tossed around quite a bit until investigations into this matter are concluded.
Former Fox News contributor Judge Andrew Napolitano, who is now selling his services to Newsmax, turned up the heat even more, stating, “It gives me no pleasure to say what I’m about to say, because I worked with Pete Hegseth for seven or eight years at Fox News. This is an act of a war crime -- ordering survivors who the law requires be rescued instead to be murdered, there’s absolutely no legal basis for it.”
He continued, “Everybody along the line who did it, from the secretary of Defense to the admiral to the people who actually pulled the trigger should be prosecuted for a war crime, for killing these two people.”
I am not a fan of Hegseth, but I really want the speculation on this front to be false for the sake of this country and for Admiral Mitch Bradley, who is overseeing the operation. This story is not going away anytime soon, no matter how much Hegseth calls it fake news. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that everyone involved is on the right side of the law.
