Andrew Napolitano says the entire chain of command involved in double tap boat strike “should be prosecuted for a war crime”
Napolitano: “There’s absolutely no legal basis for it”
Published
Citation
From the December 2, 2025, edition of Newsmax's National Report
ANDREW NAPOLITANO (GUEST): It gives me no pleasure to say what I'm about to say because I worked with Pete Hegseth for 7 or 8 years at Fox News. This is an act of a war crime, ordering survivors who the law requires be rescued instead to be murdered. There's absolutely no legal basis for it. Everybody along the line who did it, from the Secretary of Defense to the admiral to the people who actually pulled the trigger should be prosecuted for a war crime for killing these two people.
SHAUN KRAISMAN (HOST): And who would bring that prosecution forward?
NAPOLITANO: Military would bring them because they're all active duty military, not the secretary of defense, but everybody else would be subject to a court martial. I don't know where this is going to go. Republicans in the Congress seem to be as exacerbated by it as the Democrats do. I think it's getting beyond politics now. The killing is out of hand. And this last one, in which Pete Hegseth first denied that he gave the order, and then the White House said he did give the order. And then the White House said it was in self-defense. Self-defense? You got two people in the ocean clinging to a burning boat to stay alive, and they're going to be killed for self-defense? That doesn't make any sense.