By Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — An executive order issued by President Donald Trump this week that seems to give him huge power to interpret the law is raising concerns among legal experts that it could dissuade military commanders from refusing unlawful orders and allow the president to exert influence over the military’s legal processes.

“I do worry about the chilling effect … I can definitely see people hesitant to fulfill their duties because they’re afraid Trump will have them punished,” Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel who previously served as a military judge and the Air Force’s chief prosecutor, told CNN.

The executive order, released by the White House on Tuesday evening, is focused on giving the president greater control over independent federal agencies but it includes language that says the president and attorney general “shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch,” of which the Defense Department is a part. The order comes as Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have ordered the military to take a bigger role in immigration detention operations at the southern border, and have indicated the administration is open to using the military domestically.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate in January, Hegseth side-stepped questions on if he would stand up to Trump if the president issued any illegal orders.

“I reject the premise that President Trump will be giving any illegal orders at all,” he said.

“We know [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth has said things in the past that are critical of war crime prosecutions – if they make that official policy will that dissuade prosecution of war criminals?” Christensen added. “Will it dissuade commanders from standing up to unlawful orders? … This is something that could put fear into the decision making of service members.”

Trump “could have easily made it clear” that this didn’t apply to the decision making of military judges or lawyers, Christensen said – but no such carve-out was made. And without further clarity from the Pentagon or the White House on how the order will be implemented, it’s unclear what second- and third-order effects it could have within the military, Christensen and other military law experts said.

Impact on military justice system

Lawyers within the military are likely already working through what this means for the Pentagon, Christensen said.

“My time in service, there was never once that I was curious or wondered or was concerned about what the president thought as I was prosecuting a case, or presiding over one as a judge,” he said. “But I think now, people probably will be.”

Federal law established the military’s own justice system, called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And while it doesn’t happen frequently, the president – who is also the commander-in-chief — already has authority to interfere in the military legal process — Trump notably did so in first term in 2019 by issuing pardons in high profile war crime cases, against the advice of Pentagon leaders. CNN reported that then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other senior military leaders told Trump that his actions could damage the integrity of the military’s justice system.

“The Department of Defense has confidence in the military justice system,” Jonathan Hoffman, then the Pentagon spokesman, said at the time. “The president is part of the military justice system as the commander-in-chief and has the authority to weigh in on matters of this nature.”

Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force judge advocate and current law professor at Southwestern Law School, said in application to the military justice system, the executive order is “stating what is already the current legal operating system in the executive branch.”

“If [the Office of Legal Counsel] tomorrow stated that ‘waterboarding isn’t torture,’ which they did once, recall, 20 years ago, then no executive branch official can contradict that without losing their jobs,” VanLandingham said. “Even [Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces] judges can be removed from their positions …. They work for the president, and if a president wants to exploit that structure, he has the legal authority to do so. It’s how Congress set things up.”

A judge with the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, or CAAF, can be removed for neglect of duty or misconduct, VanLandingham added, but can’t be removed “simply because the president doesn’t like their opinions.”

Another military law expert, however, Josh Kastenberg, also a former Air Force judge and prosecutor who is now a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law, said the order has broader implications for other parts of the military establishment.

“The military establishment is far greater than the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and it includes the civilian workforce, it also includes defense contractors,” Kastenberg said, adding that the order raises the possibility “and frankly likelihood of unlawful pressure that will fall on administrative and federal contracting, safety inspections, promotions, demotions, things like that where unlawful command influence can actually occur.”

“This order makes all of that more possible,” he said.

Kastenberg pointed to other scenarios he believed the executive order could impact — such as an order telling service members “no one can speak to Congress without first going through the Secretary of Defense,” or that “no person can talk to a reporter without our permission.”

He also echoed the concern over a chilling effect it could have on military commanders, who typically might consult their military lawyers on an order if there are legal questions, but who could “stop doing that and just follow suit.”

Kastenberg also pointed to defense contracting and the stringent process for awarding contracts to companies. The order could be used by the administration, he said, to steer military contractors “to donors…in a way that we haven’t seen before.”

“I worry about this cascading effect of legality,” he said.

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