Judge Andrew Napolitano has a dire warning for Pete Hegseth after the Secretary of Defense reportedly authorized an attack on suspected drug traffickers in September.

Napolitano appeared on Newsmax’s “National Report” where he condemned Hegseth’s decision.

“I’m not happy to say what I’m going to say, because I worked with Pete Hegseth for seven or eight years at News,” Napolitano said Tuesday. “This is an act of war crime, ordering that survivors required by law be rescued rather than killed, there is absolutely no legal basis for it.”

The Washington Post said in a damning report published Friday that Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everyone” aboard the ship in the Caribbean.

According to the US Department of Defense's own Law of War Manual, it states that
According to the United States Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual, it is stated that “orders to shoot the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”

John Lamparski via Getty Images

After the initial attack, a second attack was ordered to kill survivors clinging to the burning ship, which Hegseth attributed to a Navy admiral.

“Everyone who did it, from the Secretary of Defense to the admiral to the people who actually pulled the trigger should be prosecuted for a war crime, for killing these two people,” Napolitano said, highlighting the “two people in the ocean clinging to a burning ship for survival.”

According to the United States Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual, it is stated that “orders to shoot the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”

Napolitano added that the issue is now “going beyond politics” and that “the killing is out of control.”

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Fellow critics have referred to the second attack as “outright murder,” although Hegseth views the attacks differently.

In a statement shared on He also called the Post’s account of events “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory.”