Blumenthal EXPOSES Hegseth “Hegseth Must Be Held Accountable.

The Scandal of Scapegoating: Hegseth’s Disgraceful Attempt to Blame a War Hero

The escalating crisis over the Caribbean strikes has reached a point of naked moral failure, stripped bare by Senator Richard Blumenthal’s blistering condemnation. This is no longer a political skirmish over policy; it is a profound crisis of accountability at the highest levels of the Pentagon, where the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is actively attempting to preserve his own career by scapegoating a decorated career officer. The entire operation, Blumenthal argues, was illegal from the start, and the consequences—the alleged murders or war crimes—demand the immediate resignation of the man desperately passing the buck.

Blumenthal’s position is uncompromising. He rejects the notion that the legality of the strike is still an open question, asserting flatly that “This operation was illegal.” The evidence already in the public domain is damning: strikes on apparently unarmed individuals, killed without clear intelligence on their cargo, their destination, or even their true identity, constitute a blatant violation of the laws of war. But the most egregious offense is the undeniable fact that the administration has not even denied that two individuals, rendered “out of the fight” and clinging to the wreckage, were killed in a second, deliberate strike. The only ambiguity left by the administration is who, precisely, gets to be the fall guy.

The Shameful Scapegoat: A Betrayal of Command

The shifting of blame is the most corrosive element of this scandal. Hegseth’s transparent attempt to make Admiral Bradley, a career military professional, the fall guy is not just politically weak; it is a disgraceful and destructive act that justifies a demand for his immediate resignation. This tactic enrages the military community because it violates the most fundamental, unwritten code of command: political leaders at the top must take responsibility for the decisions and the outcomes that result from their orders.

When Hegseth, the political appointee who directed the strikes be “totally lethal,” attempts to shield himself by pointing downward at a commander who carried out those orders, he sends a chilling signal to every professional soldier, sailor, and pilot in the world. The message is clear: “You will be thrown under the bus for lawbreaking by political leaders.” This calculated betrayal is why Blumenthal believes whistleblowers from within the military are coming forward—they are distraught not just over the illegal act itself, but over the gutless political maneuvering that followed, seeking to ruin a respected career officer to save the skin of a political hack.

The Race Against the Shredder

The investigation into potential war crimes is now a race against time to preserve the truth. Blumenthal’s warning about “the shredders… going” is not merely rhetoric; it is a procedural reality in any major scandal. The immediate priority of any criminal investigation is the preservation of evidence—the video, the audio logs, the command communications. The failure of the Republican-led Armed Services Committee to issue a prompt, unequivocal demand that all evidence be preserved is, in itself, an abdication of responsibility and strongly suggests a lack of backbone in confronting the White House.

Without that immediate, penetrating investigation, the politically convenient narrative—that the strike was lawful self-defense—will harden, and the evidence needed to prove murder or war crimes in real time will disappear. The law is explicit: once a person is shipwrecked or placed out of combat, they are protected by international law. They must be rescued and treated humanely; intentionally killing them is a grave breach and a textbook war crime.

The Constitutional Abdication

Blumenthal highlights a deeper structural failure that allowed this tragedy to occur: the complete abdication by Congress of its most fundamental constitutional duties. The administration claimed it was “at war” to justify the lethal strikes without oversight, yet Congress has refused to formally declare war, or even vote on a War Powers Resolution to authorize this type of military activity.

This double standard is intolerable: the President claims wartime authority when it permits him to kill without question, but denies a state of war when Congress attempts to exercise its constitutional right to oversight. By failing to act—by failing to investigate, to demand evidence, and to vote on war powers—Congress is complicit. It has signaled to the executive branch that it is acceptable to use reckless, lethal force, based on flimsy intelligence, without any accountability to the American people.

The conclusion is inescapable: the Secretary of Defense, who directed the strikes be lethal and total, is ultimately accountable. His willingness to evade responsibility by sacrificing a military professional is not just a political failure—it is a moral stain that renders him unfit to serve. His resignation is the only pathway to restoring a modicum of integrity to the Department of Defense and ensuring that the investigation into these potential war crimes can proceed without the shadow of a conflicted leader attempting to destroy the very evidence of his culpability.