Pete Hegseth moving to relax rules of engagement as part of military lawyer overhaul, says report

Administration sacked top military lawyers last month and now wants sweeping changes among judge advocate general’s corps

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly planning an overhaul for the military’s lawyers to relax the rules of combat engagement and change how charges are brought against service members.

Hegseth wants sweeping changes among the judge advocate general’s corps, pushing for more aggressive battlefield actions and more leniency against soldiers accused of offenses, which could include war crimes, sources told The Guardian.

The Defense Secretary has enlisted attorney and former naval officer Tim Parlatore to oversee the effort, the sources said. Parlatore has previously served as an attorney for Hegseth, Trump, and Eddie Gallagher, a former Navy SEAL accused of war crimes.

The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

The reported shift in strategy comes after the administration last month fired the top lawyers for the Army and Air Force without explanation.

The Pentagon is also reportedly moving to halt all civilian harm mitigation work inside the military, leadership at a center focused on advising commanders told The Washington Post.

Trump administration has moved to stop civilian harm-reduction efforts at military and fired top lawyers (Getty Images)

Hegseth has long derided what he sees as a culture of excessive caution within the military, mocking the judge advocate general core, known by their initials as JAGs, instead calling as “jagoffs.”

In his book The War on Warriors, Hegseth wrote that Americans “should not fight by rules written by dignified men in mahogany rooms eighty years ago,” and claimed that, “In some cases, our units were so boxed in by rules and regulations and political correctness, we even second-guess ourselves.”

Hegseth told a podcast in November that during his time as a soldier, he ignored a commander’s order in Iraq not to fire on someone unless they raised a weapon to shoot at American soldiers first.

“Clear as day, I remember walking out of that briefing and pulling my platoon together and being like, ‘Guys, we’re not doing that,’” Hegseth said. “’If you see an enemy, engage before he’s able to point his weapon at you and shoot.’”

During his time at Fox News, Hegseth successfully urged Trump to pardon U.S. servicemembers accused, and in one case convicted, of war crimes.

As The Independent has reported, the U.S. military has long obscured and undercounted the number of civilians it kills during operations, only disclosing civilian death tolls beginning in 2018 and often failing to conduct full due diligence on the aftermath of attacks gone wrong