Hegseth conscripts the Pentagon for Trump’s ‘retribution campaign’

In threatening to deploy the military justice system against Democrats,
Hegseth has joined Trump’s norm-shattering bid to punish political foes.

Updated
November 30, 2025 at 12:33 p.m. EST


Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House in August. (Eric Lee/For The Washington Post)

By Noah Robertson, Tara Copp and Sarah Ellison

After Donald Trump’s reelection last year, a retired Army general who’d been critical of the president in the past made a list of the ways that the incoming administration could come after him, should he speak out again.

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In targeting Kelly and another prominent Democratic critic of the administration, Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia, the Defense Department under Hegseth has been co-opted into the president’s norm-shattering bid to exploit what are supposed to be the nonpartisan tools of government to crush political foes.

The Trump administration has sought to punish its enemies through mortgage fraud investigations overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and through criminal probes that Trump personally demanded the attorney general pursue.

Enlisting the Pentagon in this effort poses a unique threat to American democracy, according to historians, retired military officers and legal experts. Long-standing taboos against using the armed forces to further a president’s political machinations have helped ensure that service members obey their civilian leaders — and prevent this powerful institution from being used to suppress Americans’ constitutional rights. Discarding that standard, experts say, risks setting a harmful precedent.

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