Sarah Fitzpatrick and Missy Ryan write:

One of Pete Hegseth’s first actions after taking charge at the Pentagon was to fire top lawyers in the Army, Navy, and Air Force—senior officers who the defense secretary said functioned as “roadblocks” to the president’s orders. The former National Guardsman has a history of hostility toward military lawyers and the legal restraints they impose on the use of military might. They are known as judge advocates general. Hegseth calls them “jagoffs.”

This week, Hegseth proposed a “ruthless” overhaul of how the military’s thousands of lawyers in uniform, and their civilian counterparts, are organized, part of his campaign to move from, as he has called it, “tepid legality” to “maximum lethality.” JAGs serve a vital oversight function on issues such as whether drone strikes are aimed at legally justified targets and whether to prosecute adultery. “In some circumstances, the delivery of legal services across the Military Departments has become marked by duplication of effort, ambiguous lines of responsibility, uncertain reporting relationships, and inefficient allocation of legal resources that do not match the command’s priorities,” Hegseth said in a memo, which we reviewed, that announced the plans. He gave the military services 45 days to submit proposed changes to the way that they allocate legal responsibilities to their JAGs and civilian lawyers.

Hegseth couched the review in terms of efficiency and reducing waste and overlap. He said in a video released on the Department of Defense’s X account that JAGs in the future will be responsible for operational and military issues, including the laws of war and matters of criminal justice, and that civilian lawyers will handle more administrative work such as environmental and labor reviews and routine procurement.

But his plans have alarmed many current and former military lawyers, who see the bureaucratic justifications as cover for what they suspect Hegseth really wants to do: reduce the ranks of lawyers, purge internal dissent, and eliminate guardrails designed to restrict the military from carrying out legally dubious orders. [Continue reading…]