Hegseth's Navy JAG Nomination Is Another Bold Choice That Indicates Huge Changes Ahead

Some ink is being spent by some of the usual suspects on this appointment. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s appointment today of his personal lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, as a Navy commander in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps reflects not just the norm-breaking approach that Hegseth is bringing to the job, but an odious philosophy of warfare. Like his new boss at the Pentagon, Parlatore has a pattern of providing support to soldiers accused of grave misconduct, even war crimes. He notably represented Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL court-martialed on charges including the murder of a captured fighter (though he was found guilty only of one, lesser charge), along with a second SEAL accused of serious sexual offenses. Elevating a lawyer with this record does not bode well for the armed services Hegseth hopes to build.

What struck me about this paragraph is that when I was growing up, the lawyers who took on clients no one else would touch, like the fictional Atticus Finch, because if only the virtuous and worthy can get legal defense, we no longer have a legal system.

For Hegseth and Parlatore, the nuances of assessing who is friend or foe on the basis of how they act appear to be an unwelcome distraction. Crude binaries based on identity are so much simpler—whether they determine who is permitted to serve in our armed forces or who is a potential target for killing. Hegseth likes to emphasize military standards, yet shows a reckless disregard for the very benchmarks of discipline and combat effectiveness that have guided the American military for generations. This culture warrior’s identity politics will ultimately make the U.S. military weaker.

I don’t have any privileged information, but I think there are some lessons we can draw from the people Hegseth has appointed so far. To replace the racist and ethically compromised General C. Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth called on a retired Air Force three-star general who had never worked on the Joint Staff; see Trump’s Radical Choice for Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Could Rattle the Military Establishment – RedState. Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, is a classmate of JD Vance and a friend of Hegseth. He served as a company grade officer in the Army; see Trump’s Radical Choice for Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Could Rattle the Military Establishment – RedState. The deputy Air Force secretary is former Space Force lieutenant colonel Matthew Lohmeier, who was forced to retire for opposing DEI; see Trump Tags Space Force Officer Dismissed by Biden Over Criticizing DEI for Role in New Administration. The undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness is retired USMC lieutenant colonel Stewart Scheller, who was forced to retire for criticizing the lack of accountability in Afghanistan (see Trump Taps Officer Who Castigated Lack of Afghan Accountability for Defense Department Post – RedState). Hung Cao, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of the Navy, is a special operations veteran who has vocally opposed DEI and the military’s COVID policy. His presumed boss, John Phelan, is a venture capitalist.

I think there is a common thread running through these selections. They are not creatures of the system, but they are familiar with it and how it is broken. Their loyalty is to Trump and Hegseth, not to defense contractors or congressional powerbrokers. They have a genuine desire to rebuild the military. 

Putting Parlatore in the Navy JAG slot will give Phelan and Cao a strong partner in cleaning up the cultural morass that has created a Navy that appears to be absolutely broken to the outside observer. Here is Parlatore talking about why the Navy JAG needed to be fired.