On Tuesday afternoon, lawyers for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Sedition) will head to court and ask U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to rule that Orange Man is indeed Bad, and that the looming Pentagon hearing to consider whether or not Kelly, a retired Navy captain, should be demoted is simply an act of political retribution against a feared opponent.
Leon has previously ruled against Trump in a similar case, and accused him of attempting to punish speech that enjoys protection under the First Amendment, and the judge is likely to issue a similar ruling in Kelly’s case. This will, of course, be red meat for leftists who repeat the line that President Donald Trump is a fascist dictator in the making. A ruling in Kelly’s favor will not only boost the Seditious Six leader’s nascent 2028 presidential hopes, but will also lend credence to the Democrats’ favorite propaganda line about the man they love to hate.
Reuters could barely contain its glee, reporting Tuesday that “the court hearing, set for 4 p.m. ET in Washington, is another test of President Donald Trump's historic campaign of vengeance against his perceived political enemies, which has drawn pushback from judges across the ideological spectrum.”
Nevertheless, the case against Mark Kelly is by no means open-and-shut. In the video that began the whole controversy, the “Seditious Six,” six far-left lawmakers, including Kelly, made statements that included the now-infamous statement that “you must refuse illegal orders.” The Seditious Six also said that “no one has to carry out orders that violate the law,” “…Or our constitution.” They didn’t say which illegal orders they had in mind, or even if they meant any specific orders, but it was nonetheless quite clear what they meant, and legality had nothing to do with it. They were trying to induce military personnel to disobey orders from Trump that leftists opposed.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth weighed in on this video on Jan. 5, characterizing it as a “reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline.” Hegseth wrote:
As a retired Navy Captain who is still receiving a military pension, Captain Kelly knows he is still accountable to military justice. And the Department of War — and the American people — expect justice. Therefore, in response to Senator Mark Kelly’s seditious statements — and his pattern of reckless misconduct — the Department of War is taking administrative action against Captain Mark E. Kelly, USN (Ret). The department has initiated retirement grade determination proceedings under 10 U.S.C. § 1370(f), with reduction in his retired grade resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay. To ensure this action, the Secretary of War has also issued a formal Letter of Censure, which outlines the totality of Captain (for now) Kelly’s reckless misconduct.
Kelly then sued. His suit bases his case entirely upon the freedom of speech: “The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech. That prohibition applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy.”
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A trifle less loftily, Kelly himself added, “I’m a f**king US senator. I have, in theory — in theory — supercharged First Amendment speech rights under the Speech and Debate Clause, and they’re trampling on that.”
This is, however, not really a simple First Amendment case. It’s a case about the supremacy of the federal government. The Seditious Six was doing much more than simply enunciating opinions that President Trump disliked. The reality, and the key to this case, is the fact that neither U.S. senators, nor members of the House of Representatives, nor the governors of the various states, have any right to judge whether a lawful command of the president of the United States is to be obeyed or not. That makes Kelly and his Seditious Six colleagues seditionists indeed.
Judge Leon’s ruling will be controversial no matter what it is. The United States is on the brink of another civil war, and just as in the first one, the people (such as Mark Kelly) who are tearing the Union apart and advocating defiance of the president today are those who are claiming to be the most loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law. It was a false claim in 1861, and it is a false claim today.
