ON ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION PART 2

LET’S CONTINUE OUR DISCUSSION of Lord Acton’s adage “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Part 1 dealt with Trump; here in Part 2 we focus on Pete Hesgeth and Stephen Miller. 

Corruption and Pernicious Bullying. David A. Graham writes about “Hegseth’s Appalling Vengeance Campaign,” The Atlantic, January 5, 2026: “One indicator of a polity’s health is whether a citizen can be punished merely for telling the truth about the law. The signs for American democracy are not good.”

He continues, “This morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that he has begun the process to demote Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and NASA astronaut, and reduce his pension pay. The operative facts here, naturally, are not Kelly’s past service but his current rank and service: a Democrat serving in the U.S. Senate and a political adversary of President Donald Trump.”

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s avowed retribution toward those disagreeing with his agenda. Full points to Graham for referring to Hegseth by other than the administration-approved “War” Secretary, although, alas, the latter title is becoming more accurate. 

Should an Unlawful Military Order Be Obeyed? For independent, non-governmental, nonetheless learned opinions on this, see The Law Office of Military Law & Justice. In particular: “An order becomes unlawful when it directly conflicts with higher law or exceeds the issuer’s authority.”

It continues, “Common categories include: Orders that require a war crime or clear violation of the law of armed conflict (e.g., targeting civilians, torturing detainees, executing prisoners). Orders that require violation of the Constitution or federal statute (e.g., summary punishment without due process, clearly illegal domestic law-enforcement tasks).”

Should anyone now doubt culpability? 

“What Hegseth did not cite,” Graham notes, “was what Kelly and his colleagues actually said in the video, and for good reason. Doing so would expose the absurdity of the charge and the abuse of power involved in the attempt to demote him. ‘Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,’ Kelly said.”

What’s more, Graham recounts, “As Kelly and his lawyers have noted, Hegseth has cited the same law about disobeying illegal orders in the past.) Instead, Trump and his aides threw a fit, dubbing the Democrats the ‘Seditious Six.’ ”

Alas, it’s not the first time that hypocrisy is a byword of this administration. Where will this absolute madness end?

Image by Anna Rose Laden for The New York Times.

Certainly Not With Stephen Miller. Chris Cameron recounts in The New York Times, January 6, 2026, “Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted.”

Cameron quotes Miller responding to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Yet what about NATO, the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and other organizations contesting these inherently unlawful “iron laws”? Let us ponder again Lord Acton’s adage.

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026