Sen. Kelly Sues Department of Defense Over Disciplinary Actions

On Jan. 12, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) filed a civil suit against the Department of Defense and Secretary Pete Hegseth over the military disciplinary proceedings initiated against him. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia, argues that, by initiating disciplinary proceedings, the government retaliated against Kelly for First Amendment-protected speech and undermined his Article I responsibility to oversee the armed forces.

Kelly asks the court to declare Hegseth’s censure unlawful and to halt the ongoing disciplinary proceedings against him.

The disciplinary proceedings and subsequent lawsuit stem from a video in which Kelly and five other members of Congress called for U.S. servicemembers to resist following unlawful orders amidst the military’s campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Following the video’s release, Hegseth issued a formal censure and opened an inquiry into whether to demote Kelly, a retired Navy captain, for undermining the military’s chain of command.

The lawsuit further alleges:

[The disciplinary proceedings] trample on protections the Constitution singles out as essential to legislative independence. It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member of Congress for engaging in disfavored political speech. Allowing that unprecedented step here would invert the constitutional structure by subordinating the Legislative Branch to executive discipline and chilling congressional oversight of the armed forces.

Read the full complaint here or below: