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Truth in the Barrel
Devil's Cut | Military Relations w General Steven Lepper
00:35:25
In this compelling episode, retired Major General Steve Lepper joins host Amy McGrath to discuss the growing politicization of the U.S. military and the erosion of its apolitical foundation. With 35 years of service, including time as legal counsel to...
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- [00:00]
A
From the Cascades to PDX to your kitchen. We recycle like we live here. That's why governments, brands and recycling companies are all joining together to bring change to make recycling better. As in trusting that your recyclables end up in the right places to be made into new things and having brands help fund the cost of recycling. You can find the Latest updates@recycleon.org Oregon. From Mount Hood to the bin under your desk, together we can do this. Welcome to Truth in the Devil's Cut edition. I'm your host, Amy McGrath, and today we're talking with Major General Steve Lepper. General Lepper retired from the U.S. air Force after 35 years of service. He spent his career upholding our democratic guardrails in uniform, serving as the Air Force's Deputy Judge Advocate General and as legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Over those decades, he advised seven commanders in chief. And he's been clear about one thing. He served others without regard for their political views or their views of the military. He's become a prominent voice on the importance of upholding civilian control of the military and protecting its apolitical foundation. In recent op eds for the Hill and the Sun Sentinel, he's warned about the dangers of using our troops for political purposes, whether that's deploying the troops domestically or turning the armed forces into tools of loyalty. So today we'll talk about how these political standoffs hit our troops at home, what happens when the military's independence is tested, and why maintaining integrity, not obedience, is what keeps our democracy strong. This is the Devil's Cut. And I want to welcome Major General Stephen Leper. Thank you for being here with us today.
- [01:52]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:54]
A
I want to start with these strikes on the high seas. You've been critical of them, as have I. You mentioned many reasons in some of your op eds, recent op eds that you were. One of the reasons was that you were worried might provoke war with Venezuela. But is that your biggest concern with these strikes?
- [02:18]
B
Well, it's one of them. And, you know, when we attack any vessel or aircraft or whatever, any target, we have to be concerned about the country to which that target belongs. And in the case of boats crossing the Caribbean, first of all, it's unclear what country those vessels are from. In one particular instance, Colombia claimed the vessel. And so obviously, one of the concerns I have is that we are not accurately or effectively identifying the nationality of the vessels. Or if we can't identify the nationality, are we sure that they are actually doing what the administration is saying they're doing. So we've got a real factual issue that we have to overcome before we even start talking about the legal issues. But when we do start talking about the legal issues, we've got problems there as well. Because once we start firing our weapons, once our military starts firing its weapons, then we've got to have sufficient justification for doing it. In most cases in recent memory, those justifications have been linked to self defense. And in these particular cases, it's not entirely clear what kind of defense we're undertaking. If we think that these vessels are carrying narcotics and we are concerned about those narcotics being being consumed by our citizens, then certainly that's a threat. That's a significant threat. But the problem is that in the past, in the memory of all of us who are looking at this, those issues have been dealt with as international criminal issues. And the Coast Guard has been responsible for representing the United States in attacking those vessels that are coming here with narcotics on board.
- [04:14]
A
There doesn't appear to be transparent evidence. Maybe these individuals were carrying drugs. We don't know that. The government hasn't provided that evidence. And I always felt like that's really important, not just for the American people, but for the world to see. I mean, we have in the past kind of shown, hey, this is why we're doing this. I mean, you've called for a congressional investigation into these strikes. Is that part of the reason why? What's the evidence Here it is.
- [04:49]
B
That's part of the reason. And if the evidence is what some people think it is, that some of these vessels were actually bringing illegal migrants to this country, then basically what we've been involved in is attacking civilians. And when we start doing that, international humanitarian law is implicated, domestic law is implicated. Essentially, if these were citizens, if these were civilians, what we've done is commit murder. That's the plain and simple legal fact here.
- [05:23]
A
How come more people like yourself, with the background that you have, aren't speaking up right now?
- [05:32]
B
Well, I don't know. I mean, I wish more people were. There are a lot of people who have done what I've done. I spent 35 years in the Air Force as a judge advocate advising commanders on the legal limits of their ability to prosecute military operations. And there are lots of people who wore uniforms and did exactly the same thing I did. Some of them are speaking out, some of them are writing, as I have, about this issue. Some of them are calling this administration to task and demanding more facts, more legal analysis. But the bottom line Is, as you suggest, there just aren't enough people who have raised their voices to really move the needle with our fellow citizens and convince them that this is a real problem.
- [06:23]
A
Yeah, I think it is a real problem. And I'm very worried about where we're headed, not only from domestic perspective, but also an international perspective. We've always been seen as sort of the good guys, at least certainly in our mind, but also in our partners and allies. We do things sort of by the book. And this seems so out there, these strikes. And I get the reasoning why. I mean, I feel like we all want to tackle the drug problem. It's really real in a place like Kentucky, for sure. But murdering people, you know, a thousand miles from our shore, without knowing who they are or what they are, when they appear to be running away from us, you know, in a speedboat that can't even reach the shores of America, it just seems so un American to me.
- [07:27]
B
Well, you're absolutely right. And you know, like I said earlier, the traditional way in which we've approached this has been from a law enforcement perspective. Now, that's not to say the military wasn't involved. When I was a young major at the Pentagon, I actually was involved in the counter drug mission in the Caribbean. And I went to South America on numerous occasions to negotiate treaties, to set up radar networks so that we can detect vessels coming to our shores. The military has been involved in these missions, but we've been involved by applying our technology, our equipment, our expertise to identifying the threat, and then the threat would be neutralized by law enforcement. There are a lot of parallels here between what we're doing in in the Caribbean and what we potentially are going to be doing here in the United States. You know, the military isn't supposed to be a police force. The military isn't supposed to be involved in law enforcement. Yet increasingly, both in the Caribbean and here in the United States, that's what our military is being asked to do. And whether it's foreign citizens or American citizens, that's just not the role that we ought to be undertaking.
- [08:48]
A
Yeah, let's talk about that. Given that there are National Guard units in Chicago, in Portland, what are you concerned about happening next? I mean, the guard units in D.C. appear to be picking up trash. But what are the concerns here?
- [09:08]
B
Well, I'm glad you asked that, because last week a group of judge advocates that I'm part of put together a memorandum for Congress where we expressed some of our concerns about what's next. And, you know, rather than being in A reactive mode which we've been since February when the judge advocates general were fired until today. We decided to be proactive and try to anticipate what might be next. And we identified two things that we were really concerned about when it comes to deploying military troops to American cities. The first is the normalization of having troops on our city streets. Having them out there just, you know, right now is not normal. But over time seeing them is going to make having them on our streets normal in the eyes of many Americans. And what we're concerned about is that once that happens, then we're going to start seeing military troops being used in other ways, not just guarding ICE buildings or ICE special agents, but now we may start seeing them being used at polling places to provide security for elections. We may start seeing them being used to target domestic terror groups which the President is very concerned about. He's called the far radical left antifa as a domestic terror organization. Are military going to be asked to, to use force against a domestic terror organization as they have now been used to attack an international terrorist organization in the form of cartels in the Caribbean? So we communicated to Congress that we're concerned about not just these initial deployments, but by the fact that normalizing their presence on our streets may make them more likely to be used in these other very, very illegal ways.
- [11:17]
A
Yeah, I don't think we've ever heard a president talk about the use of our troops on our streets. The way we are hearing this President talk. I mean, that's what's so chilling to me. Standing up in front of sailors on the USS Truman or in Quantico and saying to the military, you're going to have to go against the radical Democrats now. I mean, that, that's kind of how I heard things. That's scary for somebody who, you know, as a former person has been in the military for 20 years. It's just something I never thought I would ever hear. Is there anything that can be done legislatively in the future to make sure that, that, that this is, you know, really difficult to use our military in these political, I don't know, stunts?
- [12:13]
B
Well, again, in our letter to Congress, we identified some ways in which Congress could actually push back on some of these things that the President is trying to use the military for and to prevent the military from being used in some of the ways that I talked about polling places against domestic terror groups, etc. And there are some statutes out there that could be amended in very minor ways that would make it absolutely illegal. For example, for troops to be deployed to polling places.
- [12:50]
A
Right.
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B
We could make it absolutely illegal for troops to be used in situations involving anything called a domestic terror organization. Those are law enforcement missions, and the military should not be used in those. We've got laws on the books right now like the Posse Comitatus act and others that prevent the military from being used in law enforcement capacity, and those can be strengthened as well. So, yes, there are many things that Congress can do if it softer to do them.
- [13:25]
A
One of the things, general, that was really enlightening to me last summer, I was involved in, actually two summers ago now, I was involved in tabletop exercises that looked at what happens if we have a second Trump presidency and there are no guardrails, meaning there is nobody like General Mattis or General Kelly to kind of remind the president about the norms dealing with our military. And one of the things that I found during those tabletop exercises that occurred was that there was a lot of gray area along the lines of the Insurrection act and some of these things that just the military hasn't been used in this very partisan political way ever, because we've had leaders who believed in the norms and believed in this, this, you know, apolitization of our military. It's sort of ingrained in our our country. And now you have an administration that doesn't seem to care about that. And there's not a whole lot of black and white in law preventing the president from using the military in such a capacity. And I wanted to get your take on that because that was a big aha moment for me. I always felt like there was something in law that was going to prevent this, and there really isn't. And what you're seeing is the current administration is sort of getting around some of the laws that are already in place. What are your thoughts on that?
- [15:06]
B
Well, you're absolutely right. This administration has actually been quite clever in the way that they've been able to sidestep the laws that are currently on the books. For example, on our southern border, they've established what are called national defense areas, which essentially make the land within them military installations, and they can use the military to enforce the laws within those national defense areas. A way to get around Posse Comitatus. You know, there are other ways that this administration has deployed troops to sidestep Posse Comitatus as well. So you're right. They've been very effective in doing that. The problem here is that the laws that are on the books assume a president who regards facts as facts and doesn't simply make them up. And these laws that are on the books give the President a lot of discretion in the way that he uses the military, but they are based on situations on the ground, facts on the ground that trigger the prerequisites that are necessary for actually deploying troops subject to those laws. So, for example, the Insurrection act, which is an exception to the Posse Comitatus act, it does allow military troops to be used in law enforcement capacity, but it requires certain facts to exist before the Insurrection act can be invoked.
- [16:41]
A
Like an insurrection.
- [16:43]
B
Like an insurrection, exactly. And right now, they don't. They don't exist in Portland, they don't exist in Chicago. They just don't exist. And so these laws that give the President discretion assume that they are going to be used in good faith. And it's that good faith that is absent here.
- [17:06]
A
Yeah, it is absent, because, I mean, the President could then just declare it happening, this is happening, and who is there to stop him? That's a huge concern. I also have a concern with this Supreme Court case from a couple of years ago that basically gives the President immunity. And at the time, I was very worried about our military because of that case, because I felt like if the President can do no wrong, and whatever order that the President gives is always legal because the Supreme Court said whatever the President does is always legal. Now, where does that put our military when it's clearly maybe not a legal order, and then, you know, it puts the military in this really tough spot of do I follow this order or do I not? Because the guy that's giving it, he can't ever be prosecuted, but potentially I could.
- [18:11]
B
Exactly. It seems like two years ago that the Supreme Court handed that decision down, but it was actually last year, Trump versus United States. And you're absolutely right, it basically gives the President absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for anything within the scope of his core constitutional duties, which includes the. His duty as commander in chief. And so, as you said, it basically allows the President to issue orders and not himself be subject to criminal prosecution if those are illegal orders. So everything that's happening in the Gulf right now, in the Caribbean right now with those narco trafficker vessels, if, at the end of the day, we find out that those are all illegal orders, we've got more evidence about, you know, what was on those boats, and they don't match up with what the administration says they do. The President can't be prosecuted, but the military members who pull the trigger potentially could be. And I say potentially because Gene, Fidel and I published an op ed last week in Just Security where we talked exactly about this issue and the immunity that the President enjoys. There's a huge question there, as you pointed out, if he's not subject to the law, are the orders that he gives subject to the law? And if they're not, can any order be unlawful using that definition? And whereas the majority on the Supreme Court talked about the President and how their decision affects the President, and the dissent led by Justice Sotomayor talked about the consequences. And she used some military examples in her dissent, like using Seal Team 6 to kill political rivals.
- [20:09]
A
Right.
- [20:10]
B
Nobody on the court talked about the impact of that decision on the military. And so now the military has this incredible burden placed on it to decide how to navigate this very, very bizarre legal terrain that immunizes the President on the one hand, yet makes the things the military is asked to do is ordered to do potentially unlawful. If you look at what lawful is, what right and wrong is. And so military members who are being asked to do things that are unlawful, who are being asked to do things that are not right, are faced with a very, very difficult decision. Do I do it or don't I?
- [20:53]
A
I'm trying to explain it to folks who haven't been in the military. You also are putting commanders in this position of, you know, if they don't follow through with these orders, they're just going to get fired and they're going to find somebody that's going to do it. And so it's a really, really tough position. You know, early on in this administration, we had the Secretary of Defense fired the many of the top jags, the Judge Advocate Generals, and he insinuated that they were sort of roadblocks to his, you know, warrior ethos push. I thought at the time it was really chilling because there was those mass firings of four star general and three star generals and admirals, but also the JAGs, which was less reported, but I thought just as chilling, and I'm curious as to what you think there, being a former JAG yourself.
- [21:48]
B
Well, you're absolutely right. It is chilling. And when you talked about commanders being fired, the jags have already been fired. The jags who are responsible for providing legal advice to commanders, as I said before, to tell them what the left and right limits are legally for what they're being asked to do operationally and when they were fired back in February of this year, a group of former and retired jags, we, we got together and we, we expressed our common concern about what this meant for the rule and Role of law in the military. We spent our careers as judge advocates, advising commanders, advising troops on what they could and couldn't do legally from a domestic legal perspective and an international legal perspective. And like you said, the secretary in messaging, why he fired the jags, talked about not making the law or lawyers roadblocks in the kinds of things he wanted to do to make the military more lethal. So what we did as this group of former and retired jags, we got together and we basically put together a white paper that pushed back on the secretary's notion that the law somehow makes military less lethal. And we talked about how the law actually makes the military more lethal because what it does is it focuses military operations, it focuses weapons deliveries on only those things that can make a military difference. You don't target civilians, you don't target hospitals, you don't target schools. Those things do not give you a military advantage if you destroy them. What does give you a military advantage are, are counter force types of targets. And so we got together and we put this white paper together. We sent it over to Congress and we also sent over some proposed legislation that we hoped Congress would enact to rebuild or reinforce the guardrails that had been destroyed or damaged in the secretary's firing of the judge advocates General. So yes, we're very concerned. There are things that Congress can do to push back on this. But for the future, what we're very, very concerned about is that no longer are you going to have commanders listening to their jags.
- [24:21]
A
Yeah, I know, and it's terrible. You've also talked about how you're worried about President Trump and Secretary Hegseth bending the military from the Constitution toward this personal loyalty to the administration, to the President. This specifically came to light again, I think, with the Quantico address to the 800 generals and admirals. And you've said that militaries filled with yes men do not win wars. And I've gotten this question a lot from the media and from friends and people here in Kentucky. What should service members and leaders in our military do right now? Should they be doing anything? And if your retired individual should be fighting back against some of these things, what do you think?
- [25:26]
B
Well, first of all, I think commanders and troops ought to be listening to their jags to find out whether what they're being asked to do is lawful or not. Secondly, I would be the last person to advise any commander or member of the military to disobey an order because the presumption, as you and I know from our military service, the Strong presumption is that we follow orders when we're given orders, and only when it's very clear that they're unlawful would we ever push back. But pushing back is necessary. And in those situations where we're being asked to do things, our military is being asked to do things that are unlawful or simply not right, we need to start pushing back. And that pushback needs to include talking about these issues with our fellow citizens and making it very clear that if, you know, if you can achieve a military objective in a lawful way, even though the way that you're being asked to perform the mission may be unlawful, then you always do it lawfully. Okay? That has always been sort of our mantra as military members. But if there's no way that you can do what you're being asked to do in a lawful way, sometimes you just have to lay your stars on the table. And ultimately, those folks who gathered at Quantico listening to those speeches have got to decide what their threshold is before they lay their stars on the table.
- [27:00]
A
And I would hope if they do lay their stars on the table, that they don't do so quietly. I think that's another difference that we have today. Used to be, in sort of the old days, you just quietly resigned. I'm not sure that's going to be enough today. You know, I feel like there's so many firings going on that it's not even going to make the news. No one's going to care, you know, but if you. If you're sort of outspoken about why you're doing that, that might be really important. Although, you know, there could be repercussions for that, personal repercussions. So it's tough.
- [27:39]
B
It is tough. And I want to go back to something you asked me a little. A little while ago. You know, you talked about our military being the good guys, and I think that's why America is proud of its military. We are the good guys. We have been the good guys. And if you go back to those speeches at Quantico and you do a word search on the transcripts, do you know how many times the secretary used the word honor in his speech?
- [28:09]
A
Probably never.
- [28:11]
B
He used it one time. He used it one time. And the one time he used it was when he told everyone in that room that if what he was saying to them made their hearts sink, they should take the honorable approach and resign. That's the only time he talked about honor. And so the thread that I try to use to tie all of what we've been Talking about together is the concept of honor. You and I both went to military academies, and we had what was called an honor code, which focused mainly on integrity. But the larger concept of honor is really just doing the right thing. And if we have a secretary who's not even willing to talk about that as a standard for the military, in addition to weight limits and physical fitness, then we have a real problem.
- [29:04]
A
Yeah. The speech itself was so mind blowing to me. I never thought I would be living in a time when we heard not only a Secretary of defense make the statements that he made, but also the President of the United States speak such language to 800 of our top generals and admirals. It was really unbelievable. I want to ask you two more things. One, we have a government shutdown happening right now, and we're almost in the second week of this, I think, and on October 15th, members of the armed forces are going to miss their first paycheck of this shutdown. And I want you to talk about just how impactful that is for the millions of military families. Are you hearing from any. What kind of economic harm this is and how that hurts our military?
- [30:02]
B
Well, I know exactly what kind of economic harm is being inflicted on our troops and their families. You know, I've been through a number of government shutdowns in my career, and since I ended my career in 2014, and after I ended my career in 2014, I actually ran a trade association called the association of Military Banks of America, which are a collection of banks that serve the military and veteran communities. And in cases where the government shuts down and paychecks are no longer issued, it's things that, you know, banks and credit unions can do for their members, their customers, that help fill those gaps. And the gaps are things like being able to pay for childcare. The gaps are caused by the fact that many of our military spouses can't get the kinds of jobs that pay what they should because they move around so much and they can't establish a career that will result in them getting paid what they should be paid. And so what you have is a, you know, by. By virtue of the fact that these men and women who serve in uniform, move constantly and sacrifice always, you've got families who are doing far worse financially than many, many American families. And to have this happen to them is just a backbreaker in some cases.
- [31:31]
A
Yeah, it really is. I want to give you sort of the last word here and tell our listeners, many of whom care about our country and care about our military, is there anything that you want to leave everyone with. I think we're living in times that are not normal and that are unprecedented and dangerous. But I want you to tell everyone what you think. What, what's the parting shot here? What do you want the American people to know?
- [32:07]
B
Well, I used the word honor a couple minutes ago to describe how I believe the military has and always should comport itself when it's being asked to do things to support our nation, to defend our nation. And I really would like to leave your listeners with the idea that our military, military service is an honorable profession. It always has been. And what I'm concerned about now is that its leaders are asking it to do some things that are not based on actual fact and that have the potential of our troops doing things that are not right, that are not legal, and that are inconsistent with the respect that they deserve from not only our citizens, but from the rest of the world. I served many years overseas and I know how my friends in foreign countries look at us. They have a high regard for the US Military that is eroding and it's eroding at home and it's eroding abroad. We need to bring honor back to the conversation and it needs to be central in the conversations we have about how the military is being used going forward.
- [33:36]
A
I totally agree. And you know, I've always, and I've also served in many other countries around the world. And what makes our military so strong is not just that it's lethal, it's already lethal. We're the most lethal force and have been for decades, since World War II. Okay. But what makes us strong is also our honor, it's also our values. And I worry that we are led by people who do not understand that in this sole focus on, you know, lethality and, you know, we're killers and we have to be the best killers. We're already lethal, you know, but what, what makes other countries want to work with us, to partner with us, are those values, are those limits, are things like we don't schwack speedboats in the middle of the ocean because we just feel like it. You know, we don't take our troops and deploy them onto the streets of America to target our so called political enemies. That is not something that we do in America. And people not only here in our country, understand that and expect that, but also around the world. So I think what you just said is sort of the crux of the whole thing. General Lepper, I really appreciate you coming onto the show. I thank you for being part of Truth in the Barrel. This is such an important conversation right now because this is in the news. It's not going away. Sadly. I think the politicization of our military is probably going to get worse. And your voice is so important. So I really appreciate you stepping up and being out there.
- [35:34]
B
Thank you, Amy. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
- [35:37]
A
All right. And thanks to everyone for watching, for listening. Make sure you like and subscribe to the channel Truth in the Barrel. Make sure you follow on all our social accounts. Stay updated with what's going on. Until next time. Cheers. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.
- [35:56]
B
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- [35:57]
A
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B
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- [36:23]
B
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