Hegseth replaces Congressionally-mandated Military Justice Review Panel with open-ended Pentagon legal-system review under his own general counsel

A two-page memo issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on May 8, 2026 directs the creation of an "ongoing, long-term, department-wide review of all aspects of the military legal system." The review is convened by Department of Defense General Counsel Earl Matthews and reports directly to Hegseth, with interim reports and recommendations delivered to the Secretary on a rolling basis rather than a single end-of-review report. Hegseth publicly announced the new panel in a May 11 video, framing the effort as cutting "unnecessary bureaucracy" and "professionalizing" military justice.

The new panel formally substitutes for the Military Justice Review Panel — a 13-member independent oversight body created by Congress in April 2022 and required by statute to report to Congress on the operation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Hegseth disbanded that panel in 2025, after it delivered a 238-page review of the UCMJ in late 2024. The result is a structural transfer: a Congressionally-created, independent review body that reported to Congress has been replaced by an executive-controlled review body that reports to the Secretary of Defense alone.

Current and former JAGs and outside legal experts — including Eugene Fidell of Yale Law School and retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, a former Air Force JAG — describe the move as completing the consolidation of military-legal oversight under the Secretary, alongside Hegseth's February 2025 firing of the top JAGs for the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the March 2025 commissioning of his personal lawyer into the Navy JAG Corps; and the March 2026 "ruthless" review memo splitting JAG and general-counsel duties. The May 8 memo is recorded here as the specific act of replacing the Congressionally-mandated review function with an internal one; the related JAG firings, commissioning, and prior review memos remain separate events.