Posted on 03/19/2025 4:29:47 AM PDT by MtnClimber
In February, SecDef Hegseth fired the Army’s and Air Force’s top uniformed lawyers (the judge advocates general, or “JAGs” for short). Two retired Air Force JAG major generals, Charles J. Dunlap and Steven J. Lepper, responded with online outrage. Both former JAG generals essentially claimed that SecDef Hegseth had overstepped his legal and moral authority and imperiled the nation, the military, and the rule of law. Their well timed writings stoked the political left’s furor occasioned by President Trump’s firing of Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown and CNO Franchetti.
Both retired generals’ comments should be rejected because they ignore the most basic qualification for being an attorney, military or otherwise: an attorney must have the confidence and trust of the client. This qualification applies doubly to senior military officers.
It is clear that the dismissed JAGs did not enjoy the confidence of their new clients and for good reasons. Their embrace of pernicious, anti-merit DIE initiatives, which violate U.S. law and are inimical to good order, morale, and discipline, marked them as unreliable counselors in the minds of their new clients.
In the Feb. 22 edition of Lawfire, retired USAF deputy JAG, now Duke law professor Dunlap complained that “military legal officers ... are never expected to be replaced on a change of Administration” and that “stripping the armed forces of its senior uniformed legal advisors tasked by [10 U.S.C. §9037] to provide independent advice sends all wrong messages throughout the military legal community, not to mention to commanders.”
On Feb. 23, retired major general Lepper upped the ante, claiming that the firings were driven by “reckless motives that should scare every American” and said POTUS and the SecDef had “remove[d] the only remaining guardrails preventing military personnel from following unlawful orders.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
"I don't trust you."
"Well, you're not allowed not to trust me! This is an outrage!"
Good, things are starting to go in the right direction.
SAC ceased to exist in 1992… 16 years before Obama was elected..
Interestingly, while there is evidence that Shakespeare practiced law, most scholars agree he had studied to be a lawyer and his plays frequently involved detailed (and correct) legal procedures and proceedings.
Lawyers are necessary in a nation of laws. Many of our Founding Fathers were lawyers.
And a really good lawyer with business sense is a fantastic person to have on your side. They are rare, though.
The retired former JAGS merely revealed what kind of JAGs they had been, the kind that saw themselves in charge over and above the commanders they served.
I saw that. Potentially quite interesting.
I think you made an error in that SAC was deactivated in 1992 and Obama was not President until 2008.
Thanks for the correction. Dates are not my strong suit in my memory.
However he did fire a number of officers in charge of nuclear forces if I recall, and many others.
“ That same week, Obama fired the number-two nuclear commander,…”.
Now they are appropriately JAG-offs.
"Quietly" is not a word that comes to my mind when thinking of a description for SecDef Hegseth.
Impressive? Most definitely.
He doesn’t seem to be going out of his way to jump in front of TV cameras. Unlike, say, Bondi.
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