Photo: Nicolas Tucaat/AFP/Getty Images
When Leon Panetta sees what’s happening at his old workplace, he can’t help but feel a bit nervous.
Panetta, 87, served as Barack Obama’s Defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, confirmed by the Senate in a 100-0 vote. The bipartisan support for the lifelong Democrat might have been explained by any number of accomplishments throughout his decades-long career: As CIA director, he oversaw the successful hunt for Osama bin Laden; as Bill Clinton’s budget director and White House chief of staff, he strengthened the ties he made to Capitol Hill as a member of the House from California for 16 years. He’s served in Washington on and off since the mid-1960s, more than a decade before his successor at the Pentagon was even born. So he knows a thing or two about the stresses of holding public office.
And the one thing you don’t do, he says, is use the Pentagon for “frivolous” things like settling scores with a lawmaker who hurt your ego.
“As somebody who was secretary of Defense, you know, the one thing you learn is that people have the right to be critical of steps that you’re taking. I mean, that’s part of what this country’s all about. And, you know, I’ve spent over 50 years in public life. The one thing you have to do is be able to have the ability to tolerate that kind of criticism, because it’s constitutional,” Panetta says.
This week the Trump administration attacked six Democratic lawmakers who recently made a video telling U.S. military and intelligence personnel they can defy illegal orders, labeling the Democrats the “seditious six.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went a step further, singling out Arizona senator and Navy veteran Mark Kelly for retribution. First, he announced a Pentagon investigation into Kelly for allegedly violating a federal law against actions that “interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces.” Then Hegseth personally mocked Kelly, who flew dozens of combat missions during the Gulf War and commanded the Space Shuttle as an astronaut, on social media even questioning his rank of captain and threatening him with a “uniform inspection” as if he were just a young subordinate.
Panetta says Hegseth’s fixation on Kelly speaks to a deeper danger to national security.
“When it basically overwhelms you and becomes an obsession, then I think what I worry about is that it really does weaken our national defense because the message to the world is that we’re spending time on this kind of frivolous activity,” he says. It also “sends a message of weakness” to China, North Korea, and Iran that the Pentagon’s boss is more worried about domestic critics than foreign adversaries.
“It’s diverting attention, frankly, from the national-security issues that are of concern. You know, what’s happening in Ukraine, what’s happening in Venezuela, where we have 15,000 people deployed there along with a carrier and no clear strategy as to what it’s all going to be used for,” he says.
Hegseth, 45, is the least experienced Defense secretary in modern history, plucked from hosting a Fox News show to run an organization with more than 2 million employees. Since he was barely confirmed by the Senate, Hegseth has generated a steady stream of screwups, from sending classified war plans over Signal to halting military aid to Ukraine without Trump’s knowledge. He has seemed to hang on to the job by sheer loyalty to the president, including going along with Trump’s desire to rename the organization the Department of War.
Panetta, who retired to California after leaving Washington, D.C., says he keeps in touch with people there who are “very nervous about whether or not the Defense Department is performing its basic mission. That’s what really worries them.”
The way he sees it, Hegseth’s investigation into Kelly is more about messaging than substance.
“Taking this action, which is obviously their way of sending a message that nobody should say anything critical of anybody in the administration … it becomes a waste of time, frankly,” he says. “They should have learned a lesson from the Comey investigation, which was thrown out of court because of the way they handled it. And in this situation, you’re dealing with a United States senator who happens to be a war hero.”
Hegseth has suggested Kelly, who earned numerous military decorations in his extensive career, could be recalled to active duty to face court-martial proceedings. But legal and military experts have said they can’t see how the matter would ever even make it to court as Kelly simply stated facts in the video about members of the military having the right to refuse illegal orders. Hegseth would almost certainly be accused of undue command influence during such proceedings.
Panetta, likewise, says if the case ever made it to court, it would almost certainly get tossed. “You know, I guess for these people in the administration, they must feel that even though it fails, even though it took a lot of time, that somehow they sent a message that they want others to be intimidated by.”
“It’s making, frankly, Senator Mark Kelly more of a hero, and there’s more attention on what he said, and it’s creating more headlines,” he says.
Hegseth has only doubled down amid the controversy, demanding a briefing on the results of the investigation into Kelly’s conduct by December 10, according to a memo published on Tuesday.
If optics are the point for Hegseth, who’s made it his personal mission to eradicate “woke” policies while focusing on the importance of “physical fitness and appearance” in the military, that might also explain his beef with the group formerly known as the Boy Scouts. Hegseth has apparently moved to end the military’s century-long relationship with the group, now called Scouting America, because it has angered him by becoming “genderless.” He complained in a draft memo to Congress that the organization had become too inclusive and now serves only to “attack boy-friendly spaces.”
Chuckling at the Defense secretary’s complaints against the Scouts, Panetta appeared to sigh before saying, “He’s really somebody who has become secretary of war against culture issues. It has nothing to do with defense; it has everything to do with politics and culture wars.”
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