Danger Will Roberson!

There are a few things that raises my heckles, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling with this, religious zeolites rewriting the military code of justice... I don't know.

Pentagon begins sweeping review of military legal system

"Reviewing the military legal system is not a problem, reviewing it inside the building without independent structure is structural concern," Ira Rushing said.

Federal News Network

Anastasia Obis

May 18, 2026

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has launched a sweeping review of the military legal system, directing the Pentagon to evaluate legal programs across the services, compare them with one another and benchmark them against the Justice Department and criminal justice systems. 

In a May 8 memo to service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs staff and legal offices across the Defense Department, Hegseth instructed the Pentagon’s general counsel to convene a special review panel that will conduct what he described as an “ongoing, long-term, departmentwide review of all aspects of the military legal system as it affects our warriors.” 

The panel is expected to issue interim reports and recommendations over time rather than produce a single final study. Hegseth said the effort is intended to “cut unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthen training and organization and make military legal professionals more effective.”

And what will the religious make-up of this panel be, and who choses them?

The question is not whether to review the system — the military legal system faces a number of challenges, including yearslong backlogs, inconsistent policies across the services and chronic staffing shortages — but how that review is structured.

“There’s a lot of areas in the military legal system that need reform,” Ira Rushing, an associate at the Tully Rinckey law firm, told Federal News Network.  “I would have some reservations about having the panel structured and convened by DoD general counsel, which is a bureaucratic position, so a bureaucrat making suggestions on how to reduce bureaucracy. I think throughout the history of time that has never been a very good idea. But again the difference between this being an executive branch panel versus a legislative branch panel is its ability to actually effectuate any change to begin with.”

I don't really trust Hegseth, I am scared he will change the balance of their legal system to favor the military!

Some of the things to watch over the next six months to better understand where this panel is heading include its membership list, once it is released — the credibility of the effort will depend heavily on whether the panel includes independent voices such as retired military judges, defense practitioners and academic experts or it is dominated by political appointees and Pentagon insiders.

“The more diverse the better. If it’s a roster of political appointees or inside the building council  — maybe that’d be a different signal,” Rushing said.

Yup!