Sen. Mark Kelly said Monday that he’s not received formal notification from the Defense Department about being recalled to active-duty status so he can face court-martial proceedings.
Mr. Kelly, Arizona Democrat who retired as a captain in October 2021 after a 25-year career in the Navy and the NASA astronaut corps, said he’s not received any communication from the Defense Department about the matter, other than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement on social media.
“I was notified of a potential court martial through a tweet by the secretary of Defense,” he said. “That’s the only notification that we have received to date. And I think that says a lot about who Pete Hegseth is and what he cares about. He doesn’t care about the law. He doesn’t care about process. He doesn’t care about accountability. He cares about views on his Twitter account.”
Mr. Kelly, a former Navy pilot, was one of six Democratic lawmakers who made a social media video last month telling U.S. troops they have an obligation to ignore any “illegal” orders from President Trump.
Mr. Hegseth has called the Democrats in the video the “seditious six.” He said Mr. Kelly is the only one who still falls under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction and thus is subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“The [Defense] Department is reviewing his statements and actions, which were addressed directly to all troops while explicitly using his rank and service affiliation, lending the appearance of authority to his words,” Mr. Hegseth said. “Kelly’s conduct brings discredit upon the armed forces and will be addressed appropriately.”
The Pentagon didn’t specify what misconduct Mr. Kelly is accused of committing, but referred to 18 U.S. Code Section 2387, which makes it a crime to engage in activities affecting the U.S. armed forces that promote insubordination or disloyalty within the military.
Mr. Kelly said the Democratic lawmakers who created the video also “haven’t heard all that much” from the FBI outside of a notification that federal law enforcement agents want to interview them.
He said he did not know the motivation behind the FBI probe but suggested it was more likely that the president ordered it than FBI officials initiated it themselves.
Mr. Kelly said the video was legal and that lawmakers were providing a “reminder” to troops that they should not follow illegal orders, something that is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“We wanted to show that we had their back and we understood the situation they were in, pretty simple,” he said.
Mr. Kelly said the video was not referring to any specific illegal order or about the strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean, which he has previously suggested were on flimsy legal footing.
Rather, he said, the video reflected broader concerns about what Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth may ask of the troops.
Mr. Kelly cited a 2016 presidential debate in which Mr. Trump said U.S. troops would not refuse his orders, even if they were considered illegal under international law.
“If I say do it, they’re going to do it,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “That’s what leadership is about.”
Mr. Kelly cited other concerns with the president’s rhetoric that led to the video, like his comments about shooting protesters in the legs and deploying more troops to American cities for use as training grounds.
“We were looking forward to try to head something off at the pass that could have been really, really bad,” he said.
Mr. Trump fired off a series of social media posts about the video, one of which said it was “seditious behavior, punishable by death.” He also shared a post suggesting the lawmakers involved should be hanged.
Mr. Trump and White House aides have since clarified that he was not actually threatening to harm the lawmakers, but others have interpreted it that way.
“President Trump is trying to silence me, threatening to kill me for saying what is true, and he sent his secretary of defense after me,” Mr. Kelly said. “It’s not going to work.”
The senator said he was surprised the president responded to the video at all, but thought he would agree members of the military shouldn’t follow illegal orders.
Mr. Kelly said the threats on him and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was nearly assassinated in 2011, have increased since Mr. Trump’s posts and that they are taking them seriously, although he declined to provide details about his personal security.
“How many times in our country’s history have you heard a president of the United States say that members of the Senate and the House should be hanged and executed? I mean, I can’t think of one,” he said. “Those words carry a lot of weight. The number of threatening calls that we get into our office have skyrocketed, and they were very graphic.”
Still, Mr. Kelly said his decision to speak out is not to draw attention to himself but to raise alarm about the president’s undemocratic behavior.
“Who is he going to go after next?” he said. “Which service member, which government employee, which citizen who decides to say something that this president doesn’t like, and then he goes after them.”
• Mike Glenn and Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this story.
