An effort is advancing in the Senate to demand a probe into how Judge Advocates General were used by the Justice Department last year to serve as immigration judges and special assistant U.S. attorneys.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced a proposal mandating the U.S. Comptroller General to carry out an investigation into how JAGs were reassigned to civilian jobs. The measure was adopted with bipartisan support by the Senate Armed Services Committee for its 2027 defense package.
JAGs are trained to administer impartial legal counsel and administer and try courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, starting in September 2025, around 600 military lawyers were authorized to act as immigration judges to help address a national backlog of immigration court cases.
Then in January, JAGs were put to work as special assistant U.S. attorneys “in cities across the country at greater numbers than before and in cases with no direct connection to the military,” reads the Senate Armed Services Committee report on its fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
“Judge Advocates, I suppose, looked like a resource that [the administration] could tap into, that couldn’t quit if they were being asked to do things that they didn’t want to do,” Steve Lepper, a retired Air Force major general and JAG, told Military Times.
Lepper belongs to the Former JAG Working Group, created last year after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replaced the top lawyers for the military services. The group’s stated purpose is to communicate the effects of that decision on the rule of law in the military.
“That’s actually one of the reasons why I and my colleagues believe that it is so detrimental to the rule of law in this country to use judge advocates in those roles — they can’t say no,“ Lepper continued. ”They have to follow the lawful orders that are given to them, and they can’t simply walk away from the job if they don’t like, for any reason, what they’ve been asked to do.”
Warren’s proposal does not appear in the text of the Senate version of the NDAA, which the Senate Armed Services Committee debated in a closed session last week and was released to the public Tuesday. Instead, the measure appears in a committee report of the bill, which means it isn’t subject to debate either in committee nor on the Senate floor once the legislation comes up for a vote, Warren’s staff explained.
Under the proposal, the Government Accountability Office is expected to uncover the criteria under which the JAGs in question were selected; the extent of their training for their civilian roles; to what extent the DoD keeps information about the JAGs in question, including their related experience in their military roles and how long their civilian service is anticipated to last; and other issues related to JAG capacity within the DoD and the impact of the civilian mobilization on military justice and readiness.
The GAO must share the results of the investigation with committee members by April 16, 2027, the report states.
“Pete Hegseth is treating our independent military lawyers like pawns in [President Donald] Trump’s cruel immigration agenda, and it’s hurting our military readiness and morale,” Warren said in an emailed statement to Military Times. “This independent investigation is an important step to support our service members and hold this administration accountable.”
The probe doesn’t go as far as an amendment — proposed by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an attorney and former Army Ranger — to restrict JAGs from being assigned to roles “in cases without a direct military nexus.”
Crow’s proposal was struck down earlier this month during the House Armed Services Committee debate of that chamber’s version of the 2027 defense package.
“I think the GAO study is a half measure,” Lepper said. “What I and the group that I’m part of prefer is what we proposed at the beginning of the NDAA process, which was an outright prohibition.”
