Yep. Senators have free speech rights -- not abridged by long prior -- and distinguished -- service in the armed forces. Full stop. [Just ask Byron "Whizzer" White. Ooops -- sorry. You can't. He's long dead, and gone from the Supremes.]
The able USDC Judge Leon (sitting on appeal) is clearly. . . correct:
. . .U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said on Tuesday “that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of a sitting U.S. senator who joined a videotaped plea for troops to resist unlawful orders from the Trump administration,” according to the Associated Press.
Leon is considering Sen. Mark Kelly’s claim “that Pentagon officials violated his First Amendment free speech rights.”
During Tuesday’s hearing, a government attorney “argued that Congress decided that retired military service members are subject to the same Uniform Code of Military Justice that applies to active-duty troops,” while Kelly’s lawyers said that “they aren’t aware of any ruling to support the notion that military retirees have ‘diminished speech rights. . . .'”
Now you know -- indeed. Veterans, perhaps more than any regular citizen -- should enjoy the right to seek redress of grievances, against future administrations, after serving with distinction.
नमस्ते
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