'Horribly wrong': Veterans angered by Trump admin's 'unlawful' use of the military

Members of the military attend a meeting convened by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Guardian reports veterans are condemning President Donald Trump’s politicization of the military, particularly after Trump accused Democratic lawmakers of “sedition, punishable by death.”

A small group of Democrats with military backgrounds recently reminded soldiers in a public service announcement video that they are not mandated to break U.S. law at the order of their leaders. This prompted Trump to accuse the Democrats of “sedition.”

“Seditious behavior, punishable by death!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be arrested and put on trial.” He also reposted a message from another user reading: “Hang them George Washington would!”

But the president’s comments infuriated the military’s legal community.

“He uses sedition and treason very broadly and inappropriately,” said David Frakt, a retired air force officer and attorney in the judge advocate general (JAG) corps, the military justice branch. “The irony is that if anyone committed sedition or treason, it was the people that he urged to overthrow the government on January 6 [2021] – and you know, he pardoned all of those people and calls them patriots and martyrs and all the rest.”

Don Christensen, a retired air force colonel and former chief prosecutor of the air force, told the Guardian that Trump’s comments on sedition are “horribly wrong.”

Christensen also condemned Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a former air force attorney, for not condemning the president’s comments and for sending a letter to the lawmakers asking what orders they believe were unlawful.

“Graham knows everything [Trump is] saying is wrong because Lindsey Graham was an attorney, and he’s given briefings to the troops when he was an attorney about unlawful orders and the obligation not to follow them, and he knows what the law is,” Christensen said. “He should be full-throated out there saying what the president is doing is wrong.”

Trump, who has gotten multiple deferments from military service, is also under fire for sending the U.S. military into American cities for unclear reasons. And U.S. allies say he is ducking international law by murdering boaters in the Caribbean and the Pacific without proof of wrongdoing.

Sinking these boats is “murder, not combat,” said Frakt. “Adherence to the law is taking a back seat.”

Coretta Johnson Gray, a former air force attorney noted that one of the first acts of incoming secretary of defense Pete Hegseth was to fire or demote legal advisors to the service branches, which she said raises concerns that the JAG corps are becoming politicized. She also expressed alarm that military lawyers are quitting the service.

“It’s important to have good people who have integrity in these positions, because if you get rid of everybody who could even question, you really got a problem,” said Gray, adding that she urges active-duty senior leadership to publicly reaffirm their oath to the Constitution and their political neutrality. “

“You don’t want the American people to think … the military is going to change based on [who’s in charge],” she said.

Read the full Guardian article at this link.

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