Posted on 10/26/2025 4:20:27 PM PDT by Red Badger
In an interview on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, senior Arizona Democrat Senator Mark Kelly threatened ‘young service members’ with prosecution for following President Donald Trump’s orders to attack drug boats in the Caribbean Sea.
A man in a suit discusses U.S. military strikes against drug-carrying boats on a news program, highlighting current policy issues.
Kelly made the threat in comments to host Martha Raddatz, saying the Trump administration was “putting young service members at great, legal jeopardy.”
ABC transcript excerpt:
RADDATZ: OK, I want to talk about Venezuela. The Pentagon is now sending a carrier strike group. You know the massive amount of firepower on a carrier strike group. What is your take on what is happening with these suspected drug boats. Is it legal?
KELLY: It’s questionable. And the White House and the Department of Defense could not give us a logical explanation on how this is legal. They were tying themselves in knots trying to explain this. We had a lot of questions for them, both Democrats and Republicans. It was not a good meeting. It did not go well. They have a secret list of 20 something — 24 organizations that they have now authorized to use — use kinetic action against without the normal approach that we have for law enforcement. Hey, we don’t want drugs in this country, especially fentanyl. But all these drugs, we — we should be working really hard to interdict them and prosecute the individuals that are smuggling drugs, not putting young service members at great, legal jeopardy.
Note: ABC omitted Kelly’s word “jeopardy” from the transcript even though it was clearly audible in the broadcast.
Complete interview queued to Kelly’s threat:
Is Kelly, a veteran who served as a Navy pilot in the Gulf War and as a NASA astronaut, trying to encourage mutiny within the ranks to get service members to refuse orders for fear of prosecution by a future Democrat administration?
Raddatz did not follow up.
Meanwhile, Kelly’s fellow Arizona Democrat Senator Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war, called the Trump administration’s strikes on the drug boats “murder” on Meet the Press. Gallego also warned Trump’s orders are “dangerous” for service members:
“It’s very dangerous what he’s doing…to these men and women who have to make these calls for a president who has zero understanding about the responsibility someone has when it comes to having to make life and death decisions.”
Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a lawyer who served as an Air Force JAG officer for over three decades (active duty, Guard and Reserves) including wartime service in Iraq and Afghanistan, responded to Gallego on Face the Nation.
(CBS transcript excerpt):
“Senator Gallego, on another network, accused President Trump and our military of committing murder by attacking these drug boats. To our men and women in uniform, you’re not murdering anybody. You’re making America safer by going after a narco-terrorist. You’re following lawful orders. When President Bush, 41, took Ortega (sic, Panama’s Manuel Noriega) out in Panama, Reagan went into Grenada to deal with the Cuban influence from Grenada in our backyard, he has all the authority in the world. This is not murder. This is protecting America from being poisoned by narco-terrorists coming from Venezuela and Colombia.”
More from Graham:
…MARGARET BRENNAN: But there seemed to be a number of issues wound up in here. I know you personally used to serve as a judge advocate in the Air Force. We looked at the JAG manual: preventative self defense employed to counter non imminent threats is illegal under international law. So if we are not at war and these suspected criminals pose no threat of imminent violence, isn’t this potentially a war crime to be killing the people on these boats and then to be taking out a leader?
SEN. GRAHAM: No, not at all. I don’t know what manual you’re referring to, but I know what President Bush, 41 did. He took down Ortega ([sic, Noriega), the leader of Panama, because he was involved in drug trafficking threatening our country. Venezuela is now partnering with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is running out of money because Iran is weak.
MARGARET BRENNAN: That’s not new.
SEN. GRAHAM: Partnering with drug cartels in Venezuela. No, it should have stopped. Here’s what, here’s what’s new. You got a commander-in-chief’s not going to put up with this crap. We’re not going to sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come to our country. We’re going to blow them up and kill the people that want to poison America, and we’re now going to expand operations, I think, to the land. So please be clear about what I’m saying today. President Donald Trump sees Venezuela and Colombia as direct threats to our country, because they house Narco terrorist organizations. The leader of Venezuela is an indicted drug dealer in American courts. So yeah, the game is changing when it comes to drug traffickers and drug cartels. We’re going to use military force like we have in the past to protect our country. That’s the new game we’re playing, and I’m glad we’re playing that game, and if I were Maduro, I’d find a way to leave before heat goes down.
The dirty SOB....
This man supported Bidon abandoning the astronauts for a year before Bidon relented and allowed Musk to rescue them.
Garbage human being in a garbage political entity. Sick evil people. 100,000 dead Americans every year from drugs, Trump does something to stop it, and the democrats are against it. Awful people.
Hey Mr potato head......🖕. A disgrace to the Navy and the ass-tro-naught corps.
👴👴👴👴👴👴
Biden?
They came home after Trump was inaugurated...............
International waters............
Under the U.S. Constitution, the President—not Congress—is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Service members operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), which is part of the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch. Individual senators—and even the Senate as a whole—have no authority to prosecute military personnel for following lawful orders issued by the President.
Congress can pass laws or conduct oversight, but it cannot enforce criminal penalties on individual troops. Only military courts or the Department of Justice have that power.
Unless an order is clearly unlawful under established military and international law, service members are required to follow the Commander in Chief’s orders. A senator threatening prosecution is political rhetoric, not a legal reality.
Bullchit! Bring him up on insubordination charges. What is his status? Retired, but what?
“A senator threatening prosecution is political rhetoric, not a legal reality.”
He’s still an a-hole for saying it...........
Jonty30: “Bidon relented and allowed Musk to rescue them.” (the stranded American astronauts)
One of your three wishes from your Djinn should be to get your facts straight before you post them
These “young service members” are following lawful orders that have come from the Commander-in-Chief all the way down the legitimate chain of command. That doesn’t create legal jeopardy for the service members who carry out the orders, unless we live in a Democrat banana republic, which fortunately we don’t.
Kelly, we all knew you were stupid, we just didn’t know you were quite this stupid. You embarrass the State of Arizona.
There was a thread posted the other day citing previous times in our history that actions like this were taken - I recall specifically Jefferson and the Barbary pirates being mentioned.
If anyone remembers that thread, can you please post the link?
i’m thinking the navy has ironclad, shocking photographic evidence of the drug containers floating around the destroyed cartel cigarette boats, and this evidence will be released to make campaign ads against all the Democrats who are supporting the drug cartel transportation efforts ...
The drug cartel tentacles are far reaching. And the CCP.
They are just as bad.
One of the 2024 stolen Senate seats.
The puke Kelly is a disgrace to the uniform and should be stripped of his rank and pension.
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