---
title: "The National Guard may discipline a deployed lawmaker for criticizing Wisconsin’s governor"
description: "The Wisconsin National Guard is considering taking action against a congressman currently deployed with his Air National Guard unit for blasting the governor's decision to withdraw troops U.S.-Mexico border."
date: "2019-02-26"
modified: "2019-02-26"
authors:
  - name: "Jared Keller"
    job_title: "Former Managing Editor"
    link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/"
url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/kinzinger-wisconsin-national-guard-discipline/"
categories:
  - "Air Force"
  - "Around the World"
  - "Military Branches"
  - "National Guard"
  - "News"
  - "United States"
tags:
  - "justice"
  - "Northern Command"
---

# The National Guard may discipline a deployed lawmaker for criticizing Wisconsin’s governor

![](<https://taskandpurpose.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/19231451-1.jpg>)

The Wisconsin National Guard is considering taking action against a congressman currently deployed with his Air National Guard unit for blasting the governor's decision to withdraw troops U.S.-Mexico border.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican congressman from Illinois and lieutenant colonel with the Wisconsin Air National Guard, tore into Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers' decision on Monday to [join](<https://www.npr.org/2019/02/25/697976575/wisconsin-gov-tony-evers-pulls-national-guard-from-border-says-no-justification>) several other states in withdrawing National Guard troops from the southwest.

https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger/status/1100032737250029568

https://twitter.com/RepKinzinger/status/1100032738630033409

Kinzinger is a Republican. Evers is a Democrat. But all that really matters is that Gov. Evers is the commander-in-chief of the Wisconsin National Guard, which means Kinzinger technically dissed a commanding officer.

[According](<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wisconsin-governor-orders-troops-to-leave-southern-border/2019/02/25/612a4cca-396b-11e9-b10b-f05a22e75865_story.html?utm_term=.fb3c2ee41b91>) to the Associated Press, Wisconsin law states that commissioned officers who use "contemptuous words against the president, the vice-president, members of congress, the secretary of defense, the secretary of a military department, the secretary of homeland security, or the governor or legislature of the state of Wisconsin shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

When the Associated Press [asked](<https://www.wisn.com/article/adam-kinzinger-discipline-tony-evers-wisconsin-national-guard/26536251>) the National Guard if Kinzinger might be disciplined for his comments, spokesman Capt. Joe Travato responded that both the Guard and Evers' office "are looking into the matter."

A Kinzinger's spokeswoman [told](<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wisconsin-governor-orders-troops-to-leave-southern-border/2019/02/25/612a4cca-396b-11e9-b10b-f05a22e75865_story.html?utm_term=.fb3c2ee41b91>) the AP that the Wisconsin statutes only apply to members while "on service."

Kinzinger had previously flown RC-26s for surveillance and reconnaissance missions and invoked his military service to justify his support for President Donald Trump's efforts to construct a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

"As a member of the Air National Guard, I work with Customs and Border Protection officers on our southwest border and know firsthand how an unsecure border jeopardizes the security of our country" his website says.

### SEE ALSO: A Sitting Congressman Has Been Deployed To The US-Mexico Border

### WATCH NEXT: US-Mexico Border Wall Time-Lapse

## Author
Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

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