In the previous article of my column, I wrote about Secretary Pete Hegseth’s blatant hypocrisy: while he claimed to support a meritocratic military, Hegseth has fired qualified leaders and replaced them with incompetent individuals. The result? A military led by individuals who owe everything to Hegseth and nothing to the Constitution. This is hardly a coincidence. Hegseth’s hypocrisy when it comes to merit is a part of a greater pattern of eroding all checks on his power. In doing so, Hegseth is creating a military without guardrails or accountability, one where he can act with near impunity.
One of Hegseth’s first moves against accountability was to purge the Army and Air Force Judge Advocates General (JAG) and the acting JAG of the Navy. The JAG is the service’s chief uniformed lawyer, responsible for overseeing that service’s legal functions, supervising the JAG Corps, and advising senior military leaders on legal matters. Since these officers help ensure that military justice and operations remain subject to the law, they serve as one of the military’s greatest checks on unlawful power.
JAGs’ role in providing legal accountability is exactly why Hegseth targeted them. He has not tried to hide this fact, justifying his purge of JAG leadership by calling them “roadblocks.” The officers he removed were not just any other leaders, but those charged with advising commanders on what the law permits. By describing them as “roadblocks,” Hegseth was describing independent legal judgment itself as an obstacle in his path. This sends a very clear message to the rest of the JAG Corps: holding the administration accountable carries a professional cost.
That message was not lost on the rest of the nation. Eleven members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee wrote a joint letter condemning Hegseth’s purges, stating it signals to members of the JAG Corps that “their positions are contingent not upon their legal expertise…but rather upon political or personal loyalty.” Even the Republican Congress, which voted for a $901 billion defense bill, passed a bill requiring the Secretary of Defense to explain future Judge Advocate General firings to Congress.
These bipartisan fears were soon validated when Hegseth moved to reshape the corps itself, placing his personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, in charge of a complete overhaul. Parlatore is no independent reformer; he is a close Hegseth ally with no background serving in the JAG Corps. Now he is tasked with reshaping the very institution meant to keep commands subject to the law. The message is hard to miss: Hegseth first removed senior military lawyers who could check his authority, then moved to place the system under someone whose only merit is personal loyalty. It’s a thinly veiled power play meant to place legal oversight under his control.
Unfortunately, JAG was only the beginning of Hegseth’s war on accountability. The Department of Defense (DoD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is the department’s chief internal watchdog, responsible for independently investigating misconduct. Just as JAG advises commanders to stay within the law, the OIG exists to investigate what happens when they fail to do so. As such, Hegseth moved to weaken the OIG at its source, targeting the Pentagon’s complaint system — one of the OIG’s main channels for identifying wrongdoing.
In a three-pronged attack, Hegseth stripped complainants of anonymity, mandated a seven-day credibility screening, and targeted those he called “repeat complainants.” By forcing whistleblowers to identify themselves, Hegseth exposes them to reprisal for reporting misconduct and discourages future servicemembers from stepping forward with valid allegations. By requiring a rapid credibility screening, Hegseth pressures investigators to make credibility judgments before they have time to fully develop the facts. By attacking “repeat complainants,” Hegseth deters servicemembers from reporting systemic wrongdoing, the very cases most likely to generate repeat reports.
The timing of Hegseth’s attacks on the OIG makes his true motivations all the more obvious. Prior to his crippling of the office, the OIG launched an investigation into Hegseth for using Signal — a commercial messaging app — to share official DoD business. Indeed, Hegseth enjoyed bypassing Pentagon security and recordkeeping protocols so much that he installed an unsecured internet line in his Pentagon office to do so. The OIG even determined that Hegseth’s improper use of Signal leaked sensitive information that recklessly put American servicemembers at risk in Yemen. Taken together, it becomes clear that Hegseth’s assault on the OIG was less a reform than an effort to shield himself from accountability for breaking official Pentagon rules.
Not even the weapons testing watchdog organization was safe from Pete Hegseth’s accountability purge. The Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation is responsible for providing independent evaluations of the military’s defense systems and submitting an annual report to Congress. Hegseth ordered the organization slashed down to 30 civilian positions and 15 military personnel while placing all senior civilian leadership on administrative leave, gutting the office by roughly 75% and the budget by almost 80%. In doing so, Hegseth stripped Congress of its clearest form of oversight over Pentagon weapons testing.
After undermining the Pentagon’s watchdogs, Hegseth moved to control how Congress hears from the Pentagon itself. Hegseth required all senior military leaders to receive approval from the DoD’s Legislative Affairs (LA) office before even engaging with Congress — the branch charged with holding the Pentagon accountable. By forcing information to flow first through LA, Hegseth created a chokepoint through which he could filter, delay, or narrow information that elected lawmakers are supposed to review independently.
After gutting legal, internal, and congressional sources of accountability, Hegseth turned to public accountability by assaulting the press. Initially, he restricted reporters’ movement inside the Pentagon, now requiring journalists to be accompanied by official escorts. This was later expanded into a new 17-page press policy requiring credentialed journalists to sign a statement swearing to only report information pre-approved by Pentagon officials. After federal courts ruled parts of that regime unconstitutional, Hegseth kicked journalists out to an annex outside of the Pentagon. These new rules were so outrageous that even FOX News — where Hegseth worked prior to his confirmation as Secretary of Defense — joined The New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, NPR, Newsmax, and the Atlantic in refusing to sign onto the new press policies.
His assault on the press did not stop at intimidating outside reporters, as even “Stars and Stripes” — the Pentagon’s independent newspaper — was brought under Hegseth’s authoritarian heel. On March 9, 2026, Hegseth imposed a new set of rules governing the publication, whereby the Secretary of Defense’s public affairs office would directly oversee “Stars and Stripes.” While a news publication ought to be governed by truth, independence, and unbiased reporting, Hegseth mandated “Stars and Stripes” to follow “good order and discipline.” This is the standard for soldiers following orders, not independent journalists reporting uncomfortable facts, often going against what the Pentagon would call “good order.” What had long functioned as an independent military newspaper was thus made little more than another mouthpiece for Hegseth.
What makes Hegseth’s war on accountability so dangerous is not just that it concentrates power, but that it removes the institutions capable of stopping reckless decisions. When independent lawyers are purged, whistleblowers exposed, weapons testers gutted, Congress cut off, and reporters subordinated, unlawful orders are easier to conceal and harder to disobey. It sets the stage for war crimes to be rationalized, military secrets to be mishandled, corruption to be buried, and the armed forces to be bent toward political ends.
Hegseth has treated every guardrail that could restrain him as an obstacle to be bulldozed. He does not want a Pentagon governed by law, checked by watchdogs, answerable to Congress, or open to press scrutiny. He wants a Pentagon that answers to him and him alone. As the current administration continues to show with its actions, a Hegseth Pentagon without accountability is a Pentagon that is recklessly dangerous for both Americans and the world as a whole.
