💥 Legal Betrayal: AG Pam Bondi’s Own Brief Accidentally Wrecks Trump’s Defense of Secretary Hegseth’s ‘Double Tap’ Order
Newly Unearthed Supreme Court Filing from Attorney General Bondi Directly Contradicts Administration’s Stance on Unlawful Military Orders, Spelling Doom for Defense Secretary
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The scandal surrounding Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s order to kill survivors of a missile strike on an alleged drug boat has taken a bizarre and devastating turn, as the administration’s own Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is now positioned as the chief legal obstacle to defending the policy.
A legal brief submitted by Bondi to the Supreme Court just last year—before she joined the Trump administration—has been newly unearthed by The New York Times. The filing contains explicit language arguing that military personnel are required to disobey unlawful orders, directly contradicting the justification needed to protect Hegseth and potentially exposing the administration to legal challenges.
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The Unlawful Order at the Core of the Crisis
The crisis stems from Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policy, widely nicknamed the “double tap,” where military units were reportedly ordered to ensure the complete neutralization of targets, even if it meant striking survivors of the initial attack. The specific incident involved a missile strike on an alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean, where two survivors were later killed—an action that violates both standing U.S. military policy and international laws of war regarding the treatment of non-combatants and shipwreck victims.
While Hegseth has continued to defend his actions, the incident has drawn fierce criticism from congressional veterans and legal experts who argue that the military is not required to carry out illegal orders. This point was ironically highlighted by an older clip of Hegseth himself, who, during the 2016 campaign, conceded that generals would not follow orders to attack the families of alleged terrorists because such orders would be “unlawful.“
Now, President Trump faces an impossible choice: fire Hegseth, a loyalist who looks good on TV but is widely considered unqualified and scandal-plagued, or defend Hegseth, thereby risking serious legal challenges and direct confrontation with the Supreme Court.
The Accidental Legal Sabotage
The decisive blow to the administration’s defense was delivered not by the opposition, but by its own Attorney General.
Last year, before her appointment, Pam Bondi submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the Supreme Court during a period when the court was examining the limits of executive authority and presidential immunity from prosecution. At the time, Bondi was lobbying the court on behalf of the conservative America First Policy Institute.
In that brief, Bondi wrote explicit legal arguments that now stand in direct opposition to defending Hegseth’s actions:
“Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.”
Bondi elaborated further, using hypothetical scenarios that perfectly map onto the current Hegseth scandal:
“The military would not carry out a patently unlawful order from the president to kill non-military targets. Indeed, service members are required not to do so.”
And most damningly, she wrote:
“A president cannot order an elite military unit to kill a political rival, and the members of the military are required not to carry out such an unlawful order. It would be a crime to do so.”
This filing, intended to argue in favor of limiting unchecked presidential power, now serves as an unassailable legal weapon against the administration’s attempt to justify the use of military force that violates international protocol.
The Political Consequences and The End of the Road for Bondi
Bondi’s past legal argument creates a profound dilemma for her current role. As Attorney General, she is tasked with providing the highest legal defense for the Executive Branch. She cannot credibly defend Hegseth’s actions—or any related order from the President—without directly contradicting her own prior submission to the nation’s highest court.
This legal conflict places Bondi’s career in immediate jeopardy. If President Trump chooses to defend Hegseth, he would likely have to fire Bondi, as she cannot defend a policy that her own legal brief explicitly labeled as a crime.
This development follows a tumultuous period for Bondi, who was reportedly not Trump’s first choice for the position and whose tenure has been marked by ethical scrutiny and high-profile legal losses in court. The “double tap” scandal, once seen as a crisis for Hegseth, has now implicated the Attorney General, turning the legal brief into a political suicide note for her position.
The entire episode underscores the deep instability within the administration, where political loyalty constantly clashes with legal reality. In attempting to defend his favored Secretary of Defense, President Trump now finds his entire legal argument destroyed by his own Attorney General’s prior work, forcing a reckoning that could end two high-profile careers and definitively limit the scope of executive power in the realm of military ethics.
