Trump Wants JAGs as Immigration Judges. That’s a Disaster. | Command Post
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When the White House starts moving military lawyers into immigration courts, you want people who’ve actually been there to explain what that means.
Ben Parker, Retired General Mark Hertling and former JAG officer, combat advisor, and federal prosecutor Margaret Donovan break down what happens when you pull legal advisers out of war rooms and drop them into political fights, and why that could have real consequences for military readiness and the rule of law.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bullwork. |
| 0:02.0 | And hi, I'm Mark Hurtling from the Bullwork as a contributor. |
| 0:05.0 | And also one of the two hosts, Ben and I host, the Command Post podcast. |
| 0:09.8 | And we are excited today because we have a very special guest who's joined us, Margaret Donovan. |
| 0:17.0 | Now, Margaret, if I can introduce her very quickly, is a former military lawyer who was a prosecutor in the 101st Airborne Division. She was a legal advisor to a special forces commander. She was a soldier with two combat deployments to both Iraq and Syria. She was a federal prosecutor after she got out of the army. And now she's in private practice and lectures at Yale Law School. |
| 0:40.6 | What an amazing bunch of credentials. |
| 0:43.3 | Margaret, did I get all that right? |
| 0:45.4 | Yeah, I think so. |
| 0:46.6 | I think you've got it all, sir. |
| 0:47.8 | Thank you. |
| 0:48.3 | Okay, great. |
| 0:49.2 | Thanks. |
| 0:49.5 | Thanks for coming on with us. |
| 0:51.3 | We are very excited to talk to you because we have a lot of news about various |
| 0:57.0 | things related to the military and the law and military lawyers. We're going to talk a little bit |
| 1:02.0 | later about this article that General Hurtling just wrote for the bulwark. You can read it at |
| 1:06.8 | the bulwark.com called JAGs shouldn't be civilian prosecutors. It's all about the Trump |
| 1:11.4 | administration's possible plans to use military lawyers for their mass deportations. And also, |
| 1:16.5 | we learned, uh, we're filming this, uh, on the afternoon of February 11th. So we learned just today |
| 1:23.3 | that the administration, the Department of Justice tried to indict a bunch of members of Congress |
| 1:29.1 | who had served in the military or the intelligence community for saying that soldiers should |
| 1:33.5 | disobey illegal orders. So we're going to have to talk about that too. So to get us started, General, |
... |
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