Hegseth orders ‘ruthless’ review of JAGs. Some see an attempt to evade accountability

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday ordered an overhaul of the military’s civilian and uniformed legal offices, raising fears among current and former members of the judge advocate general corps that he will gut legal oversight of the administration’s actions.

“I'm directing the service secretaries, the Army, Navy, and Air Force through their general counsels and JAGs and the [staff judge advocate] to the commandant to execute a ruthless, no-excuses review,” Hegseth said in a video posted on Wednesday. “Scrub it clean, cut duplication and bureaucracy, clarify roles, and reporting. No more moral ambiguity.”

Members of the military’s legal community who spoke to Defense One said they are as skeptical of Hegseth’s message as they are of his timing.

The call to reorder the “current allocation of legal resources and functions” of the Defense Department’s civilian and uniformed lawyers comes as the U.S. is fighting a war with Iran—a conflict some experts have claimed is illegal, and which has involved an airstrike on an Iranian elementary school that left 175 people dead. The investigation into that airstrike is going on now, and early evidence reportedly points to the U.S. as the responsible party. 

Hegseth posted his latest video a little more than a year after he fired the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s top lawyers, claiming they were “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.”

Steve Lepper, a retired Air Force lawyer and a member of a group of former JAGs that has spoken out about the administration’s military actions, said Hegseth’s words on Wednesday were at odds with his actions as secretary.

“I think it’s probably one of the most hypocritical messages he’s communicated in his tenure at DOD,” Lepper said. When Hegseth fired the top JAGs, he said, “His message was clear: ‘The law and lawyers should have little influence over the military and its operations’.”

A defense legal insider said there was talk of potential changes among lawyers on Tuesday, but many had expected a memo, not a video, outlining the reforms. As of late Wednesday evening, no formal memo outlining the effort had been widely circulated, sources told Defense One.

On Thursday, Defense One reviewed a copy of the memo, dated March 11 and addressed to the service secretaries, JAG corps, and general counsels, which it said “are best positioned to enhance the war fight, and that our general counsel personnel are best positioned to execute non-operational, supporting functions of the Military Departments.”

The memo included a suggested split of duties between the JAGs and the general counsel offices. Civilian general counsels were advised to take on business, acquisition, real estate, patent, medical, and “litigation before non-military administrative boards and federal courts and coordination with the Department of Justice,” among other areas. 

The memo suggested JAGs remain in the realm of military justice, national security, operational, military administrative, claims related to military operations, and procurement and fiscal law in operation settings. 

Both the uniformed and civilian lawyers must also cover “any other legal subject area prescribed by the respective Secretary concerned or otherwise required by law or regulation.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how Hegseth’s reforms may affect the many civilian employees who answer directly to each service’s top judge advocate general, or TJAG, nor the general counsels of each service. 

The memo set a deadline of 45 days for reports on any overlap between the service’s civilian and military legal departments to the Defense Department’s General Counsel with full changes expected within six months.

A Defense Department spokesperson declined to answer questions about the memo and its intent. “We have nothing additional to provide beyond the Secretary’s video,” they said.

The insider said leaders of the department’s various legal offices had spoken in various ways about Hegseth’s latest action. Some said it would be an opportunity for civilian general-counsel lawyers to detangle any functions that may overlap with uniformed Judge Advocate General work. 

But: “Some of them made it clear it could be a seismic shift in how things are done,” the insider said. “Subtext-wise, I think myself, and a few of the people that I've talked to, we're pretty sure this is just a way to reduce accountability” for Hegseth and other Pentagon leaders.

The general counsel for each of the military services is a political appointee chosen by the president and confirmed by the Senate. While the TJAGs are similarly chosen, they must also be “recommended by a board of officers,” and the Defense Department must not interfere with “independent legal advice” given to service secretaries, according to U.S. law. 

“I think it's probably a way to put more legal decisions on the [general counsel] side, because I think they think that's probably more responsive to a direct civilian political nominee rather than a uniform TJAG, who's gonna have had quite a bit of experience,” the insider said.

Overworked and stretched thin

Hegseth claimed in his Wednesday video that “legal shops across the services have grown bloated, duplicative” and are in need of reform. 

“They've muddied lines of authority and pulled critical judge advocates away from what matters most: advising commanders in the fight on operations in deployed environments where seconds and minutes count,” the secretary said. “But right now, military lawyers are sometimes stuck doing civilian side work that belongs to general counsels instead, and that drains readiness and leaves gaps where we can't afford to have them.” 

Ever since Hegseth fired the Army and Air Force’s most experienced TJAGs, military lawyers have been thrown at some of the administration’s largest legal hurdles—including taking on civilian duties.

Last year, the Trump administration approved the temporary assignment of more than 600 JAGs to work for the Justice Department as immigration judges. And in January, Defense One reported that dozens of military lawyers had been temporarily assigned as federal prosecutors to support law-enforcement surges in Minneapolis and other cities.

Assigning those often-inexperienced military lawyers as special assistant U.S. attorneys has been met with legal criticism. An Army lawyer serving as a federal prosecutor was held in contempt of court last month when a man was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody without his identification documents. 

On Monday, former JAG officers called for an end to the practice in an amicus brief filed in federal court in Minnesota, writing that they were “deeply concerned that deploying JAGs to prosecute civilians in federal court in cases without a substantial military nexus erodes vital democratic norms, harms military readiness, and impermissibly inserts the military into civilian law enforcement’s core functions.”

Lepper, who joined the amicus brief, said Hegseth’s message is also at odds with these frequent civilian tasks.

“If he’s so concerned about JAGs doing their jobs, why does he continue to detail them to the Department of Justice to perform immigration judge roles for which they are not qualified and special assistant U.S. attorney roles in cases that have absolutely no military nexus,” Lepper said.

By the numbers

In December, Defense One asked the Army, Air Force, and Navy how many uniformed lawyers and civilian employees were assigned to their respective JAG corps. 

The Air Force reported that it had 1,236 JAGs, about nine more than it had the previous year, while civilian staffing had been cut to 996 from 1,022, an Air Force spokesperson told Defense One. 

The Navy said it had about 1,030 JAGs as of November, up from about one thousand the previous year, but that its civilian staffing had been cut from some 700 people to roughly 550, a spokesperson said.

The Army did not return multiple phone calls and emailed requests from Defense One seeking staffing figures.

Last year, Hegseth ordered his department to shrink its civilian workforce. About 110,000 of the department’s roughly 795,000 civilians quit, retired, or were laid off, although some 30,000 jobs deemed essential to national security were subsequently re-filled. Many workers across the department said have since reported their offices have seen lowered productivity and performance, Defense One reported this week.

The legal insider said due to the administration’s heavy reliance on JAGs after the workforce cuts, many offices were authorized to rehire for key jobs.

“For the last year now, we've been bleeding people and the work hasn't slowed down,” the insider said. “Lots of offices were getting crushed, and they've been able to make their case and get approval to hire back and fill those positions.”

Aaron Brynildson, a former judge advocate and a law professor at the University of Mississippi, said some deconfliction of JAGs and general counsels could be beneficial. 

“I agree with Secretary Hegseth’s sentiment that JAGs sometimes perform work better handled by civilian attorneys and that more clear lines of responsibility with the service Offices of General Counsel are needed,” Brynildson said. “I hope we do not reduce the number of JAGs, but place them closer to commanders.”

He also suggested that more JAGs be trained to provide legal guidance for space and cyber domains. 

Members of the former-JAG working group, which was formed after the firing of the TJAGs last year, have continued to speak out against the administration’s actions, including the continued strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the ongoing war in Iran—both of which they claim violate U.S. and international law. 

Lepper and the other former military lawyers in the group have said that if proper legal guardrails were in place, many of the administration’s actions wouldn’t have taken place.

“If Secretary Hegseth is truly concerned about the law, he should try following it. If he’s concerned about letting judge advocates provide legal advice, he should listen to them,” Lepper said.