Judging Freedom - [SPECIAL] - SCOTT RITTER: Pete Hegseth: The Self-Made War Criminal.

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

[SPECIAL] - SCOTT RITTER: Pete Hegseth: The Self-Made War Criminal.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025, a special judging freedom with our dear friend, Scott Ritter, on Pete Hegseth, the self-made war criminal. But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse. And look at where we are now. $38 trillion in national debt.

Stocks at record highs defying gravity. So what happens next? Groceries, gas, housing, everything's going up. And this dollar, it buys less every day. When the system breaks, your stocks won't save you and your dollars won't either. But one thing will. Gold. I've set it on my show for years.

Gold survives collapse. Bankers know this and billionaires know it. That's why they're buying more. Is it too late to buy or is it just the right time? Call my friends at Lear Capital to find out. Ask questions. Get the free information. There's no pressure and that's why I buy my gold and silver from Lear. And right now you can get up to $20,000 in bonus medals with a qualified purchase. Call 800, 511, 4620 or go to learjudge nap.com today. Scott, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you especially for this second segment with us this week in light of the rather tumultuous events involving the Secretary of Defense refers to himself as the Secretary of War. Before we get to Pete Hegg says, since you are such an astute student of Russia, I want to play a statement that President Putin made shortly before spending five hours yesterday with Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff and ask you how you interpret it. Please pay attention not only to the words but also to President

Putin's body language. Chris, cut number 12. We are not planning to go to war with Europe. I've said that a hundred times already. But if Europe suddenly wants to go to war with us and starts it, we are ready right now. There can be no doubt about that. The only question is, in what way? If Europe suddenly starts a war with us, I think it will be over very quickly. This isn't Ukraine. With Ukraine, we're acting in a surgical, careful manner, right? So that, well, you get it, right? Surgical careful manner, war will be over quickly. Why would he have said something, like that within an hour or two of meeting messrs wickoff and kushner well before he before that statement he made some other statements about you know europe wanting to strategically defeat russia how can we

begin to negotiate with such people he said uh i think what you're seeing is a very frustrated vladimir putin um frustrated by the fact that europe is just committing suicide um you know we remember when the special military operation started, you know, Putin would take phone calls from Macron. He would take phone calls from Merkel. He would listen. People could actually travel to Moscow and meet with him and have discussions. But in the four years, they've transpired, he doesn't talk to the Europeans anymore because they've basically opted out of rationality, opted out of sanity. And now you have Europe sitting there talking about the head of the military committee, this Italian admiral.

talking about preemptive strikes against Russia, preemptive strikes against Russia. And so I think Putin was just frustrated by it all. And his anger showed it's curious, you know, what he said, because it's something that people just aren't reflected on reality. You know, outside of Kazan, there's a factory that is producing 1,000 of the new geranium missiles, Duran 2s, and 3s, a day, a thousand a day. Russia will use on a big day against the Ukrainians about 550. Usually it's around 300, 400.

Where's the rest of those going? And they've been producing 1,000 a day now for months. They're going into Strategic Reserve. When Putin says that it will be over, we're ready right now, understand that Europe has no air defense, none, zero. They've given it all to Ukraine. And Marco Rubio gave away the farm a little while ago, where he said, you know, we'll give them two or three Patriots,

systems, and a week later, they're all destroyed. Welcome to reality. So all of Europe's air defense have been stripped, all of NATO's air defense have been stripped, sent to Ukraine where it's been destroyed. There is no defenses. So right now, what Putin is saying is, we can unleash 30,000 drones a day against Europe, and you can't defend yourself, and it won't be surgical. We're just going to take everything out. 30,000 drones a day. They could probably sustain this for seven to eight days, 210, 250,000 drones, that there's no defense against. And this is, in addition to the Ereshnik, which is now operational, the Asconder S, a long-range version of the Asconder missile, which nobody's talking about, the 9M729, who has its range

extended to 1,200-clock. Russia can touch every part of Europe with the systems that Europe can't defend itself against. So I think Putin was just basically frustrated. It's like watching a child do stupid things. And after a certain time, you have to say, you know, you're going to fool around, you're going to find out. There will be consequences for your actions and they'll be severe. And I used to put in Europe on notice that if you want to play this game, Russia will resolve this problem instantaneously. No mobilization. Russia doesn't have to take a pause and get a week or two to assemble its forces. They're ready to go right now. They have strategic drone units that have hoarded, you know, a significant number of these Geron 2 drones,

and they'll just flood the skies of Europe with weapons that Europe can't defend themselves against. And that's the reality. Wow. One last question before we get over to the Secretary of Defense. Do you think the Russians take seriously the two real estate developers that Trump has dispatched, Whitkoff and Kushner. And do you think it's even conceivable that an agreement could come out that would please both President Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky? Well, first, Zelensky doesn't matter. Why mention his name? He's not a part of this discussion anymore. Neither is Europe.

There's only two parties that count, and that's Donald Trump, and that's Vladimir Putin. And there's only two voices that count right now. Notice that Marco Rubio is not part. of this process. Also notice that Sergei Lavrov is not part of this process, not because Labrov is on the outs, but Lavrov's counterpart is Marco Rubio. That's standard diplomacy. We're outside of the standard diplomacy realm right now. We are talking about, you know, big picture economic thinking. Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are the guys that can sit down and have the kind of personal private conversations with Kirill Dmitriev and Usikov, the presidential advisor to Putin, about these issues.

You know, Jared is as close to Donald Trump as Ushikov is to Vladimir Putin. They're not talking about, you know, Zolensky and peace plan. They're talking about what happens when the war is over because I think there's a widespread recognition on the part of Trump's inner circle that the war is over. Russia has won, and there's really not anything that can be done. Trump has told Zelensky, except the peace deal, because if you don't, there won't be a Ukraine left.

And this is the reality. Vladimir Putin's forces. right now are prevailing across the battlefield. They're advancing quicker than they've ever done before. They can't be stopped. And they know this. So the only conversation to be had right now is what happens when the, when the shooting's done. See, Russia wants a post-conflict reality that resolves the issue of sanctions, resolves the issue of frozen assets, and resolves the issue of territorial integrity and legitimacy. This means that the conversation they're having right now is how can we bring this war to an end, get the West to recognize Russia's

sovereign control over the four new territories of Kerosloz, Zaporosia, Donets and Lugansk, and Crimea, no different colored maps, no, you know, we're going to hold on to this until later. Russia owns and controls these territories. How can we lift all the sanctions so that the United States and Russia can engage in the full spectrum of economic interactivity worth trillions of dollars. And how can we get our frozen assets unfrozen so that Russia can once again with confidence participate in the international banking system? Because right now Russia has no confidence in that. This is the talk that Whitkoff and Dimitri ever having that Kushner and Uschikov are having. They're talking about the post-conflict reality where Russia and the United States are

global leaders without any restraints. No sanctions, no residual sanctions, no hints of sanctions, no punishment, no nothing. This is the conversation they're having. It's a conversation they have to be having. This is the only conversation. Then what is the origin of that wacky 28-point plan? The wacky 28-point plan is a Keith Kellogg invention. This is a residual Marco Rubio, Keith Kellogg, to get Europe engaged. But Europe doesn't engage responsibly. This is the first thing that Trump saw is that when that 20, first of all, the 28 point plan was leaked. It wasn't the whole plan. There's a whole bunch more to this plan that's there. It was leaked for the purpose of undermining European confidence in this peace process to bring, to tear it apart. And Trump is fed up.

Why do you think Rubio is not in Moscow? Because the 28 point peace plan, it just, it doesn't exist in reality. There's aspects of it that just, they don't see eye to eye on. So they're focusing on, that which they do see eye to eye on. And this is the reality that they're talking about. And I think Whitkoff and Kushner came out of their confident that they are headed in the right path, that there will be a peace. It's not going to be a negotiated peace. It's going to be unconditional surrender out of the part of the Ukrainians with some residual guarantees. It'll quickly go away. I've read deep into this plan. And what Europe thinks they're going to get and what Ukraine thinks they're going to get are two totally different things than what reality is going to dictate.

All right. Moving over to Pete Hegseth, I'm going to play three tapes for you. One is Pete when I knew him and worked with him at Fox News. He appears to be giving a speech to an audience. It's not a Fox product. And in it, he says that illegal orders should not be obeyed. The second is Pete Hegseth the day after the attack on this boat in which first the boat was destroyed and then the second attack resulted in the killing of the two survivors. That's Pete talking to his and my former colleagues on Fox and Friends the morning after. The third is Pete trying to obfuscate what he knew and when he knew it at a cabinet meeting yesterday. We're going to play all three of these together.

Collectively, it's less than a minute. Chris, number 18. There are some guys at Leavenworth who made really bad choices on the battlefield. And I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you're doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That's why the military said it won't follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There's a standard.

There's an ethos. There's a belief that we are above. what so many things that our enemies or others would do. I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing. And we knew exactly who they represented. I watched that first strike lot.

As you can imagine at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. I did not personally see survivors, but I stand, because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire or smoke.

You can't see anything. You got digital. This is called the fog of war. All right. Your reactions from what we have seen of him, and then we'll dive a little bit deeper into what is expected of professional military men and women. First thing you have to understand is Pete Hexeth knows he committed a crime. He knows this in his heart of heart. So because we saw that in 2016, he knows what the law of war is.

He knows what the Department of Defense law of war manual says, and he knows what the duty and responsibility of officers and enlisted men who have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution in the United States against all of these foreign and domestic. He knows that you can't obey an unlawful order. He knows this. I think people need to realize that here we are the first week of December. The incident we're talking about took place on September 2nd. At that time, the commander overseen, this was a lieutenant or a vice admiral named Frank Bradley.

He was a commander of Joint Special Operations Command. The Tier 1 commando unit operates out of force brag. They had operational control here. And there was an ethos at play. It's sort of interesting to hear Exeter talk about an ethos that, you know, let's go back. Do you remember when Hegsseth summoned 800 flag officers and senior enlisted? He made a fool of himself trying to pretend he was George Patton. Correct.

But basically, you know, the problem with that speech is that it can be used at trial and probably will be used at trial to show intent. Because there's two war crimes that took place on September 2nd. The first war crime was the order from Trump through Hegsteth to kill them all. take no prisoners and if you listen to that speech and parse it down that's he's talking about we don't we're not going to be held by ridiculous rules of engagement our job is lethality we're going to go in there we kill things we break things this is what we do you know we ask for forgiveness later kind of attitude stupid stupid speech criminal um but it appears then again the president echoed the same

sentiment and then you have a situation where the the orders have been given now the commander of of J-Soc at the time, Bradley. You know, he comes from an organization, SIL Team 6, it has huge ethical problems. I mean, you know, these are guys that canoed people. You can Google that if you want to. Talk about Robert O'Neill and what he did to Osama bin Laden. He didn't kill him.

He just blew his head open. It's just a seal trademark, a red team trademark. These people murder people. They committed horrific crimes in Iraq and in Afghanistan that have been covered up. The seals are a corrupt. organization morally, ethically corrupt. And so here you have this guy, Vice Admiral Bradley, who came through Siltim 6 from 1999 up through 2015, was a participant in a command function in all of the crimes committed by Siltim 6. And now he's there, and he's been told by HECSeth to

kill them all. And so he did. And on September 2nd, in violation of law of war, he ordered a second strike. And remember, this wasn't in the fog of war instantaneous. Hegseth condemned himself hours of digital sensitive site exploitation. That means that they were pouring over the video. They saw the survivors and they killed them with a deliberate second strike designed to kill these people. It's a complete and utter violation of the law of war. You can't do it. They are already combat. They're out of the fight. There's no gray zone here. This is black and white war crime that was committed by a Navy SEAL giving orders to SEAL Team 6. who long ago forgot what their ethics are.

Now, he was replaced on September 23rd. Bradley was promoted up. I think he's the commander of Special Operations Command today. He was replaced by a lieutenant general, Jonathan Braga. Braga's Delta Force, completely different beast. And Braga did a revamp, a complete revamp of the way J-Soc operates because of the September 2nd crime, which resonated throughout the chamber.

I'm just here to tell you right now, everybody knew a war crime had been committed. And this is why Braga changed the whole approach. And on October 26th, maybe, there was a strike against a narco-trafficking submarine. And they blew it up. And lo and behold, there's two survivors. And J-Soc helicopters come in and rescue them

and take them to a ship. see the whole operating procedure changed because you had an ethical leader come in and say we don't kill them all we obey the law of war this is how we operate and um you know so again hexeth has to be careful here because this this case will not survive trial he will be found guilty of two war crimes and he will be you know a clear element you know this judge intent is everything what is your intent did you intend to commit a crime right intended to commit a crime, so did Bradley. They knew what they were doing was wrong,

but they had this ethical foundation that said, it doesn't matter. We're America. We're not going. We're the new military. We're tough. We're bad. We kill. Kill them all. Well, you may go to jail for the rest of your life, Pete, Haggson, and you should. Here's him condemning stupid rules of engagement

in that rather flamboyant speech to all of the flag officers a few months ago. Chris, number seven. We unleashed overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for warfighters.

That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader. And it's all my E6 squad leaders ever wanted, back to that E6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations, and then we have their back. It's very simple, yet incredibly powerful. You just condemned himself, Judge. You know that. If I played that tape before you at trial, the intent to kill, the intent to be lethal, the intent to disregard rules, law, maximum lethality.

He just condemned himself. He is guilty as charged. He's a dead man working. Here's a White House reporter asking the press secretary, who's not a military person and she's not a lawyer, was the second follow-up strike lawful? Chris number nine. You said that the follow-up strike was lawful. What law is it that allows no survivors? The strike conducted on September 2nd was conducted in self-defense

to protect Americans in vital United States interests. The strike was conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict. There was read a statement that somebody wrote for her, but it is ludicrous for them to suggest self-defense. These two guys are clinging to some people. of wood that two hours before was their boat. What threat are they? No, the, you know, I've been you're reading a lot and, you know, we are dealing with the fog of journalism right now because

there's a lot of, you know, a lot of cover up taking place, a lot of panicked people. But what's clear is that the President of United States, working with Department of Justice lawyers, has crafted a legal argument that makes these narco-traffickers a threat to the United States that justifies military intervention. Okay, so, you know, you and I can argue that and all that stuff. But the bottom line is, if I'm a military commander, understand, you're not allowed to obey an unlawful order, but if the order that comes to you, you have to presume, is lawful, and it's gone through, you know, a Department of Justice Review, and you have the attorney

General of the United States signing off saying you're allowed to hit these boats and kill them, you know, treat them as the enemy. That's an order you must obey. You don't get to judge the constitutionality of that. So this initial strike that was done, you and I can both disagree with that outcome. I believe that it's wrong and all that. But the president has lawyers who has come up with specific wording drawn from the law warfare manual that gives authority to carry out these strikes. That's fine. The moment the ship is sunk, the moment you have survivors in the water, there is no debate here. This is law that comes down from experiences from the Second World War, where I think the Lankonia, a ship that was sunk by the Germans

contained Allied and Italian prisoners of war, thousands in the water. German subsurface. to rescue them, but then U.S. bombers came in and attacked them and they abandoned these people. German officers, submarine commanders were arrested after the war, not because of this, because of other things, and tried and executed for shooting sailors in the water. Americans, the video that I saw as a second lieutenant, American submariners shooting Japanese merchant sailors in the water, because that's what we did. In 1949, the world said, this is not what we do. We don't do this. And the specific, straight up, if you're in the water, you're out of the fight. There's no debate about it.

There's no gray zone. There's nothing. You are out of the fight. You're in the water and you are protected. And it doesn't matter if you're a merchant marine, a sailor, or a narco trafficker. You're in the water. You're out of the fight. You must be rescued.

And that's where this is patently unlawful what she didn't. She just doesn't know what she's talking about, frankly speaking. What happens to Hegg Seth next? The DOJ is not going to prosecute and will be up to Trump to fire him. There might be enough political pressure put on Trump that he has to fire Pete Heggseth, and then Pete Hegg Seth will get a pardon. He won't go to trial. And neither will Bradley.

Bradley may be relieved of command, but this won't go to trial. In light of what you told us about Bradley's ethos, Bradley should be tried. It should be a public court marshal. It should be, but it won't be. Because to do that, then you'd have to bring in Heggseth. And Trump, remember, Trump is implicated here because Trump has given multiple speeches about kill them all, kill all of them, kill them, kill them. That's commander's intent right there. But remember, the people that actually did it are the SIL Team 6 operators. They're criminals as well. They won't be, they won't be tried. But they've gone too far into this. I do think that there is going to be congressional inquiry and the data will come out. There's a reason why we rescued two people on October 26th. And the reason is the military system, which is staffed by honorable men and women who know the difference between right and wrong, they recognize that something horrible had happened, that the United States

had committed a horrific war crime. And the system cleaned itself. The system put in place new rules of engagement. Fortunately, we had a very morally grounded officer. officer, General Braga, Delta Force, who said, this is what we have to do, and they cleaned it up. But there will be a record. There's a record of investigation. There's a reason why U.S. Southern Command Admiral resigned and retired because of this crime, this war crime. The whole system knows that something very bad happened, and the truth will come out.

There is a record, a document of people questioning this strike because you don't change your rules of engagement and you're operating procedures on a whim. There had to be a reason. There's a reason why General Braga rescued two people and Admiral Bradley killed two people. Here's a reporter in the White House Press Corps who has her finger on exactly what you just said. Chris number five. So much of the concern from Democrats and Republicans is focused on the survivors. Why won't the administration either confirm or deny or reveal whether or not there were survivors after that initial first strike and what imminent threat would two survivors pose who were clinging presumably to the wreckage of that boat again

as I said I think you guys are sort of not listening fully to the statement I've provided Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was totally destroyed and the threat to the narco-terrorists to the United States was eliminated and for any further questions about his thinking I would defer you to the Department of I obviously wasn't in the room. Just to follow up, Caroline, just on the administration's policy when it comes to survivors, was there a change in policy after this strike on September 2nd?

The Washington Post is reporting that these two survivors were killed after a second strike, but then in October, two people were rescued and returned to Columbia and Ecuador. So was there a decision that was made to handle survivors differently after these strikes? Not to my knowledge, no. well she just that Stephen Miller probably wrote for her well she's not knowledgeable first well again in defense of her she she only can act on what she's been given she's not a thinker she's she's not her job is to

is to read what she's been handed to her but the the fact is too that we're dealing with J-Soc you know just to you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement at least you used have to sign a nondiscloters agreement even though they existed. And everything about them, every procedure they do, every operation is classified top secret because these are the Tier 1, you know, hostage rescue team, special operators. And so she won't know about internal doings. She won't know about the internal dynamic what happened in the SEAL team.

You know, when these guys came back to their team room, the conversations they had, I can guarantee you that the morally inclined members of this team were not happy with what happened. And they reported up their chain of command. And it got to Bradley. And Bradley was in a, was in a, you know, in trouble because he understood that war crimes had been committed. And a process began that was then continued by Lieutenant General Braga when he came in to rapidly review and put in place new operating procedures so that the helicopters don't destroy the damage, sunk, or debris and kill people. The helicopters rescue them.

This became standard operating procedure. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. But the identities of these people, the designation, the tactics used, et cetera, are all classified top secret. And she won't know anything about this. Well, Scotty, thank you very much, my dear friend. I did not know about General Braga. That is newsworthy, at least from our perspective,

and it's great of you to have shared it with us. And thank you for double duty this week. And thank you for all your time, as always. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Okay, thanks, Judge. Sure, all the best. Coming up tomorrow, a full and busy day for you. At 8 in the morning, Colonel Tony Schaefer,

at 11 in the morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor, at one in the afternoon, Professor Glenn Diesen, at two in the afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at three in the afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer, at four in the afternoon, Pepe Escobar. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.