Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to be investigated over his public comments about a classified briefing.
In a Sunday appearance on CBS’s Face the Nation, Kelly said it was “shocking” how deeply the U.S. tapped into its interceptor missile stockpiles in the war with Iran, along with other criticisms based on the classified briefing. Hegseth suggested that the senator may have violated the law over his comments.
“‘Captain’ Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received. Did he violate his oath…again?” he said in a post on X, adding that the Pentagon’s legal counsel would launch a review.
Kelly retorted in a post on X, saying his own comments reflected those made by the Secretary of War at a hearing last week.
“We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take ‘years’ to replenish some of these stockpiles. That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is,” he said.
The remarks that earned Hegseth’s ire revolved around Kelly’s detailing of how certain munition stockpiles had been depleted.
“I think it’s fair to say it’s shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines, because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline,” Kelly said. “Because of that, we’ve expended a lot of munitions, and that means the American people are less safe.”
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“Whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted,” he added.
Kelly is no stranger to Hegseth’s ire: he was one of six Democratic lawmakers to feature in a video warning service members against following illegal orders, with the remarks viewed by the Trump administration as a wink-and-nod call for insubordination. The administration labeled the group the “Seditious Six,” and President Donald Trump accused them of treason.
