Group of Democratic senators pen letter to Navy secretary condemning Sen. Mark Kelly review

(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote a letter to Secretary of the Navy John Phelan on Tuesday expressing concern about the Navy’s review of Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy Captain who serves on the committee.

The letter, which was shared with ABC News, comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked Phelan to review Kelly for “potentially unlawful conduct” after the Arizona senator was featured in a video with five other Democrats who have served in the military and U.S. intelligence telling service members they could refuse illegal orders, according to a memo posted on social media by the Pentagon.

In the memo, Hegseth requests that he be briefed on the outcome of the review by no later than Dec. 10.

The Democrats on the committee, except for Kelly, condemned the review in the letter.

“We believe this ‘review’ along with the Department of Defense’s social media post announcing a ‘thorough review’ of Senator Kelly’s actions, ‘which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings’ is inappropriate, threaten the separation of powers established by our Founding Fathers, amount to a purely political exercise seeking to threaten legitimate and lawful actions by a duly elected Senator, and politicize our military justice system,” the senators wrote.

Kelly has criticized the Trump administration for threatening him with legal action. He has continued to post on social media slamming President Donald Trump and his officials over their policies.

“When Pete Hegseth tweeted he was investigating me, Gabby laughed and laughed,” Kelly said during an event last week, referring to his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords. “She realized two things. One, that guy’s a joke, and two, I’m not backing down.”

In the letter, these Democratic senators wrote to Phelan that “the theory that a sitting Member of Congress should be subject to disciplinary action entirely unrelated to their service, particularly for simply restating the law as articulated in the UCMJ and the Manual for Courts-Martial, sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.” 

The letter dismissed the review as a “baseless and patently political undertaking” and argued that it violates the separation of powers.

“Senator Kelly has been elected twice by the people of Arizona as their representative and voice in the Senate. The idea that the Department would try to undo or undermine the will of Arizona’s citizens is a direct affront to our democratic system of government,” the senators wrote.

The senators also challenged the idea that the review could be conducted impartially, citing social media posts from Trump and Hegseth that they say have made “fair proceedings impossible.”

Following the video’s posting in November, Trump wrote on social media that the video demonstrated “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump and the White House subsequently denied that he was threatening the lawmakers with execution.

The senators said that statements like this, coupled with a directive from Hegseth to Phelan that he brief Hegseth on the review by Dec. 10, “demonstrate an outright, brazen abuse of power intended to influence the military justice process and intimidate and silence a U.S. Senator for purely political purposes.” 

Kelly responded to the call for a review during a press conference earlier this month.

“I will not be intimidated by this president. I am not going to be silenced by this president or the people around because I’ve given too much in service to this country to back down to this guy,” Kelly said at the time.

In their letter, the Democratic senators said that a review of Kelly raises “significant legal concerns” about Kelly’s constitutional protections under a number of statutes.

“The impartiality of our military and the military justice system to fairly uphold the Constitution and the law are paramount to our nation,” the senators wrote.

ABC News has reached out to Phelan for comment.

ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

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