The purge has also happened to senior military leadership. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, which has overseen the strikes against boats off the coast of Venezuela, is stepping down.
While Adm. Holsey has not said why he’s leaving, it may well be a continuation of the troubling trend of purges of highly qualified senior military officials who may have been inclined to restrain Trump’s illegal and fascistic impulses.
The recent purge of military attorneys, in particular, isn’t routine bureaucracy; it’s the deliberate dismantling of the safeguards that prevent America’s armed forces from becoming a political weapon against America’s citizens and democracy.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of what’s happening right now inside the Pentagon.
At the Washington Post, David Ignatius asks why the military has not spoken out against Trump’s attacks on boats off the coast of Venezuela and what I characterize as his unconstitutional deployments of troops against American civilians. Ignatius answers his own question in the article’s second paragraph:
“One chilling answer is that the Trump team has gutted the JAGs — judge advocate generals — who are supposed to advise commanders on the rule of law, including whether presidential orders are legal. Without these independent military lawyers backing them up, commanders have no recourse other than to comply or resign.”
Judge Advocate Generals, or JAGs, are the institutional safeguard against unlawful orders: they advise commanders on rules of engagement, the Geneva Conventions, and the limits of presidential authority.
When an administration starts purging them, we’re not looking at a routine personnel shuffle. We’re seeing the careful dismantling of the guardrails that prevent America’s military from being weaponized against the American people.
This purge began with Hegseth’s February firing of the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. He claimed they simply weren’t “well suited” to provide recommendations on lawful orders. But no criminal charges were alleged, no ethics complaints cited; he simply removed them wholesale.
The message is clear: loyalty trumps legal judgment. Just like in Third World dictatorships. Just like in Putin’s Russia, which increasingly appears to be Donald Trump‘s role model.
Once the old guard was removed, Hegseth quietly moved to remake the JAG corps itself. According to reporting in the Guardian, his office is pushing an overhaul to retrain military lawyers in ways that give commanders more leeway and produce more permissive legal advice.
His personal — not military — lawyer who defended him against sexual abuse allegations, Tim Parlatore, has been involved in this process, wielding influence over how rules of engagement are interpreted and how internal discipline is handled.
At the same time, the Secretary has transformed Pentagon press controls. This week, the Washington Post exposed how Hegseth used Parlatore to help draft sweeping restrictions on journalist access and movement within the Department of Defense.
Under the new rules, similar to the way the Kremlin operates, reporters are required to sign pledges stating they won’t gather or use unauthorized material (even unclassified), or risk losing their Pentagon credentials if they stray. The policy also limits reporter mobility within the Pentagon and curtails direct contact with military personnel unless escorted.
The reaction was swift. Dozens of media organizations — Reuters, the Times, the Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, the Atlantic — refused to sign Hegseth’s pledge, citing constitutional concerns and the chilling effects of such controls. Only the far-right One America News agreed. Meanwhile, the Pentagon Press Association declined to sign and warned that these rules constitute “a disturbing situation” intended to limit leaks and suppress accountability.
Put these moves together and a frightening pattern emerges: purge independent legal advisers who might say “no,” and gag the press before the damage can be exposed. Combine that with increasingly aggressive, unilateral action by the military abroad, and you have the outlines of a strategy for bypassing democratic oversight.
A Trump-forced coup, in other words.
Wednesday, the U.S. Navy again struck what Trump claims was a drug-trafficking vessel off Venezuela, reportedly killing six people. There was no clear congressional authorization, and the legal justification remains opaque. When you remove internal legal dissent and public scrutiny, the threshold to use force becomes dangerously low.
The domestic implications are equally chilling. Trump has publicly said that he wants to use U.S. cities as training grounds for troops, and openly declared he would fire any general who fails to show total loyalty.
A wannabe dictator can’t deploy troops into American neighborhoods if he still has JAGs saying “that’s not legal,” or a press corps reporting on where they go. First he has to make sure there are no internal brakes and no public witnesses. That’s how coups are built.
Defenders will argue this is about “efficiency,” about correcting an overly cautious JAG culture, or about closing leaks. But that’s clearly a lie: real reform would emphasize transparent standards, not loyalty tests.
If the JAG corps must be reformed, it should be done by independent committees, not by one political operator calling shots. If press controls must be tightened for security, those rules should be public, constrained by constitutional guardrails, and open to judicial review, not enforced behind closed doors.
Make no mistake: this is not abstract. JAG officers are a bulwark against unlawful war, war crimes, and misuse of force at home. Silencing and replacing them is not the act of a healthy republic: it’s the early work of authoritarian takeover.
Combine that with gag orders and the purge of senior military leadership that might resist Trump’s illegal moves, and we’re watching the architecture of strongman autocracy being assembled piece by piece.
A military coup doesn’t typically happen in one dramatic moment, even though it appears that way when it reaches a climax. It begins through personnel decisions, institutional erosion, secrecy, and incremental normalization of power. The moment the legal counsel corps stops buffering against rash orders, the moment the press is muzzled, the path darkens.
We’re closer to that moment than many — including across our media — realize or are willing to acknowledge.
So the question now is whether there are still Republicans in Congress who will demand hearings, whether military leaders will raise alarms, and whether citizens will recognize the stakes.
Saturday's “No Kings Day” wasn’t just a slogan. It was a literal call to defend the republic. The time to act is before the tanks roll, not after.
Because what’s happening right now may not look like a coup to the average American, but it is unmistakably the preparation for one.
