When Kelly joined the military and stayed in the military by receiving retirement pay, he agreed to subject himself to these administrative processes and has very limited article 3 court rights for this. It’s all statutory based and those statutes say it will be handled in the Executive branch. That’s just how it works. He has due process, it’s just different.
Kelly’s still in the middle of the process which has been ongoing for awhile. It’s hard to tell what part exactly. There is a letter that says his conduct was unsatisfactory. He either has tried, or still can challenge it from becoming formalized. The letter of censure appears to be by Hegseth himself - which is unusual micromanaging. If it ultimately stays in his file, the military would review it like any other new information to decide whether Kelly should keep his rank in light of this new unsatisfactory conduct.
Having said all that, this is all so wild and “never been done before” type stuff. Surely there must be federal court laws and avenues for Kelly the Senator.
Even if Kelly doesn’t prevail (which should be a slam dunk, but I’ve lost faith in the courts), it’s going to highlight the incompetence, petty vindictiveness, and authoritarian behavior of Hegseth and the administration.
While nothing is said explicitly, I think I can fill it in.
Investigation opens awhile back. Today’s censure now seems final/formal. Kelly would have had an opportunity to contest prior, presumably did behind the scenes, and nothing changed. So it’s in his file now. Not sure if Kelly can later contest that his remarks should not be deemed unsatisfactory conduct. It now seems more about should that unsatisfactory conduct have any affect on his rank.
They will now start proceedings on whether that misconduct should affect his military rank. Prior to a determination, Kelly has a definite path to contest this administratively. He may or may not have an Art III Court path now. Regardless, after a unfavorable determination, he can appeal administratively with a limited Art 3 Court who does a final review.
It hasn’t been said, but obviously the “review” by Hegseth did not turn up evidence of a crime. This all feels very punitive, though, which is what criminal charges are for. No crime should mean no punishment. This bothers me.
I wish Kelly the best. He’s obviously up for the challenge.
Correct. And then the next president can reinstate him with back pay. What Hogsbreath is doing is a waste of time and money, and is just another attempt at showing what a tough guy he is.
The reader comments following the Times article are pretty interesting. More than a few self-identified Republicans say Kelly has their vote for President if he’s the Democratic nominee in 2028. Gotta love it.
I’m also getting the impression that Kegsbreath et.al. are going down this road because they realize the charges would get laughed out of anything but a kangaroo court-martial (and they’d have a tough time even with one such).
Disclaimer: I’ve never been in the military. Insight from anyone who has welcomed.
According to this, which references a paywall article at WaPo, even this “administrative action” is not going to go anywhere:
“None of this will stand up,” predicted Eugene Fidell, a senior research scholar and military law expert at Yale Law School. While a grade determination can be opened against a service member under narrow circumstances, he said, the actions under scrutiny must have occurred while someone was on active duty.
“This is dead on arrival as a grade determination,” Fidell said. “It’s free speech, it’s a free country, still, and there’s no ‘there’ there in terms of the power to reopen a retired grade.”
On the one hand you have chirpy neo nazi dry drunk, and on the other hand an actual hero. I would hope, in the event of a trial, that there would be the military equivalent of jury nullification.
At some point, Kegsbreath is going to have to find someone else in the military chain of command who is willing to sign off on this nonsense, otherwise it’s going to look so stupid and corrupt that even MAGAs might notice it.
Kegs makes the initial complaint, Kegs “investigates” his own complaint, Kegs writes his “letter of censure” based on his complaint, and now Kegs is adjudicating the consequences of that censure. Judy Judy and Executioner, as someone said once. This makes it abundantly clear that this is nothing more than a personal vendetta against Kelley, unsupported by any actual evidence.
But people have to know the inner workings of a system to know if what’s being done is normal or not. For example, when the US AG was personally signing off on indictments, I had no reason to know that wasn’t normal. I wouldn’t have put together that it implied no one else would sign off on them. Hell, who signed them isn’t something that would’ve crossed my mind in the first place if it wasn’t for threads here mentioning it.
