Fox's Pete Hegseth attacks the International Criminal Court: “These international bodies can turn and can turn against you”
Hegseth had pushed Trump to pardon alleged war criminals
Published
Citation From the March 6, 2020, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
STEVE DOOCY: The ICC is the International Criminal Courts probe into alleged war crimes. The man speaking there yesterday on tape, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo we have got him live on the couch today. Good morning to you, sir. What you are talking about right there?
MIKE POMPEO: So, Pete, you served. We have lots of young men and women who served in Afghanistan not only in our military but intelligence warriors and diplomats who served there. Now you have this crazy renegade body sitting in The Hague, Netherlands who wants to come after them for actions that the American people wanted them to undertake. It's wrong, it's deeply troubling, and I want everyone to know that the United States under President Trump is going to do everything we can to make sure that they never come after any of you.
PETE HEGSETH: Okay, the idea of the International Criminal Court was rogue regimes, dictators, others massacring people. Some people saw though, that these international bodies can turn and can turn against you. That's precisely what's happened here. They want to prosecute Americans who went to Afghanistan as war criminals.
MIKE POMPEO: Pete, when the president talks about these institutions, these international institutions just wandering off the mandate that they have, the things that they were intended to do. I think the whole world can see this isn't what the ICC was set up for. It was about rogue regimes. Not institutions like America. When somebody gets it wrong we hold our own accountable. We always have, we always will. We are not going to let them take on all the young men and women who served America. And we're going to -- we will make sure that this doesn't happen. The American people should have confidence in President Trump on this.
PETE HEGSETH: There will be no prosecutions of American soldiers.
MIKE POMPEO: We're going to, we're going to make sure this thing they call a court which is really a political body that we believe has now had the disinformation campaign run at them, we are not going to let them take on Americans.