Hegseth cries

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon from reducing Senator Mark Kelly’s retired military rank and pension payments as punishment after he urged troops to refuse illegal orders.

The preliminary ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington is the latest setback in the courts for President Donald Trump’s historic campaign of revenge against his perceived political enemies, which has drawn pushback from judges across the ideological spectrum.

Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut who represents Arizona in the U.S. Senate, was one of six congressional Democrats who appeared in a video in November reminding service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders. In the clip, Kelly stated: “Our laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders.”

Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images

León, appointed by then-US President George W. Bush in 2002, said in his ruling: “The speech at issue here is, without a doubt, protected speech.” He described the move to punish Kelly as a clear violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Kelly filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop the censorship.

“There is nothing ‘routine’ about the defendants’ actions here: punishing a sitting U.S. senator for his views on military policy,” León wrote. “It is a particularly valuable asset to our country to have retired veterans contributing to the public debate on military issues and policies.”

Kelly applauded the ruling, saying in a statement: “A federal court made clear that (U.S. Secretary of Defense) Pete Hegseth “He violated the constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said.”

A White House spokesman said the court’s ruling would not be the final word on the matter and that “Hegseth rightly led a review to determine future actions as a result of these dangerous comments by Senator Kelly.”

Pete, head of the Pentagon Hegseth He said in X that the ruling will be appealed immediately and added: “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain’.”

Kelly made his comments in November as more Democrats criticized Trump’s decisions to deploy the National Guard to American cities and authorize deadly attacks on vessels suspected of smuggling drugs from Latin America.

The Republican president, in a social media post, called the video “THIRSTY BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”

Hegseth issued a letter of censure on January 5, stating that Kelly had “clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline” in violation of military rules that apply to both active and retired personnel.

Trump administration lawyers had urged the judge to dismiss Kelly’s lawsuit. In a recent court filing, they called it a “quintessential question of military discipline that is not within the purview of the judiciary.”

The Trump administration also called the lawsuit premature, saying Kelly had not yet been formally censured and should have responded to Hegseththe allegations through administrative channels.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Nia Williams)