Judge seems skeptical of legal justification for Pentagon’s punishment of Sen. Mark Kelly
February 3, 2026
A federal judge says he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of a sitting U.S. senator who joined a videotaped plea for troops to resist unlawful orders from the Trump administration. Sen. Mark Kelly had a front-row seat in a courtroom on Tuesday as his attorneys urged U.S. District Judge Richard Leon to block the Pentagon from punishing the Arizona Democrat, a retired U.S. Navy pilot. Leon didn’t immediately rule from the bench on Kelly’s claims that Pentagon officials violated his First Amendment free speech rights. But the judge appeared to be skeptical of a government attorney’s defense of Kelly’s Jan. 5 censure from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.