“Double-Tap on the Water”: The Secret Strikes That Could Destroy Pete Hegseth
Washington, D.C. – December 2, 2025. In a classified briefing that leaked faster than the Pentagon could contain it, a group of active-duty JAG officers has formally accused incoming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of authorizing two unauthorized naval special-operations raids in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during his time as a senior advisor to President Trump in late 2024.
The 47-page complaint, stamped “SECRET//NOFORN” and first reported by The Intercept, details Operation Iron Wake I and II: night-time interdictions of suspected Houthi smuggling dhows that JAG officers claim had already surrendered and were flying white flags. According to the filing:
Iron Wake I (October 17, 2024): A U.S. Navy SEAL team aboard a Mark V boat opened fire with .50-caliber machine guns and 40mm grenades on a wooden dhow carrying 61 Somali and Yemeni migrants. 58 died instantly; 3 survivors were seen clinging to debris.
Twenty-three minutes later, the same unit returned and conducted what JAG officers call a deliberate “second strike” on the wreckage, killing the final two survivors. One SEAL allegedly radioed, “No swimmers left, good effect on target.”
Iron Wake II (November 4, 2024): A similar strike on another vessel left 28 dead. No weapons or contraband were ever recovered.
The JAG officers, identifying themselves only as “Concerned Legal Officers, INDOPACOM & CENTCOM,” state the missions were ordered directly by Hegseth during a secure video call from Mar-a-Lago, bypassing both the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council. They claim Hegseth justified the operations by saying, “We don’t need permission slips to protect American ships.”
Legal scholars are stunned. Under the Geneva Conventions and U.S. Code Title 18 §2441, deliberately attacking survivors in the water constitutes a war crime. The “double-tap” tactic, made infamous in drone strikes, has never before been documented in U.S. naval special operations.
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, has already demanded Hegseth’s confirmation hearing be postponed indefinitely. “If even half of this is true,” Reed told reporters, “we are looking at the My Lai of the Red Sea.”
The White House response was swift but cryptic. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the allegations “a disgusting Deep State smear against a decorated veteran” and insisted all actions were “lawful and necessary.” Hegseth himself posted on X at 2:14 a.m.: “I sleep like a baby knowing I kept our sailors safe from pirates and terrorists. Hooyah.”
Yet the leak includes a partial transcript of the Mar-a-Lago call in which Hegseth allegedly says, “Make sure there are no witnesses. We can’t have another Abu Ghraib PR nightmare.” The source of the recording remains unknown.
As the Senate confirmation vote scheduled for December 18 hangs in the balance, one question burns brighter than the rest: Did America’s next Defense Secretary just order the cold-blooded execution of survivors at sea, or is this the most sophisticated political assassination in modern history?
The JAG officers have promised more evidence “in the coming days.” Washington has not been this nervous since Watergate.