The Washington U.S. Attorney’s office previously failed to get a grand jury indictment of the group.
Hafiz Rashid at TNR:
Donald Trump is dropping his attempt to prosecute six congressional Democrats who made a video urging federal law enforcement and members of the military not to obey illegal orders.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., led by Jeanine Pirro, had sought to indict lawmakers two weeks ago, but a federal grand jury issued a rare denial. Pirro has subsequently decided to stop pursuing the case, NBC News reported Monday night. While another federal prosecutor in a different federal court district could still try to bring a case, there’s no indication that any will.
[...]
It was a gross abuse of power, as none of the six lawmakers did anything except express their First Amendment rights and tell federal and military personnel not to follow illegal orders, which shouldn’t bother the White House if it doesn’t believe it’s issuing any. A federal grand jury agreed, and on some level, prosecutors in Pirro’s office must have known their effort was unfounded, as they couldn’t name any statute the members of Congress violated.
The Trump Regime has finally realized that their pathetically partisan attempts to unlawfully prosecute 6 patriotic Democratic elected officials who starred in the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video late last year are essentially dead in the water.
The 6 Democrats in question are: Sens. Mark Kelly (AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (MI), and Reps. Jason Crow (CO), Chris Deluzio (PA), Maggie Goodlander (NH), and Chrissy Houlahan (PA).
The “Seditious Six” Democrat politicians who President Donald Trump and others accused of sedition after they released a video telling U.S. military personnel to refuse “illegal orders.” They didn't name even one illegal order because they knew there wasn't any.
support the people who made the anti-illegal-orders military ad!
So in case you missed it, six congresspeople, former military/CIA people, made a video essentially saying "yo military if Trump tells you to do something illegal you have to disobey", and now trump is saying they should be arrested and maybe killed which is uh not suggesting he isn't making illegal orders. I'm gonna guess they're getting a lot of hate mail right now. So please contact them and tell them thank you if they are your congressperson (please don't if they're not, I think they don't like that)
Three more Democratic lawmakers said they were contacted by federal prosecutors investigating their participation in a video last year reminding U.S. military and intelligence service members that they are obligated to refuse illegal orders.
The disclosures from Reps. Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.) and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) means that five of the six lawmakers who appeared in the video are under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Earlier this week, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who organized the video, and Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) also said the DOJ also attempted to contact their offices. The Department of Defense is currently investigating the sixth participant, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
The DOJ investigations are being carried out by officials working under Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a staunch ally of President Donald Trump.
It is still unclear what crime Pirro’s office believes the lawmakers may have committed.
Rather, it appears the probe violates DOJ policy and guidelines, which generally prohibit investigations from being initiated solely based on activities protected by the First Amendment, including protected speech.
In the video, the lawmakers restated a fundamental principle of military law: that service members swear an oath to the Constitution — not a person — that obligates them to disobey unlawful orders.
After the lawmakers released the video, Trump expressed support for imprisoning and executing them, all of whom are military veterans or former intelligence officers, for what he termed “seditious behavior” — a concept that does not exist under U.S. law.
The DOJ has targeted three more Democrats involved in the video warning against unlawful orders against the Trump Regime for a bogus “investigation”: Reps. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH). This is in addition to Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). The other Senator involved in the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video, Mark Kelly (D-AZ), is under DoD “investigation.”
Amid tremendous uproar on the left over President Donald Trump calling for the arrest of six Democratic lawmakers for “seditious behavior,”
David Badash at NCRM (11.20.2025):
Amid tremendous uproar on the left over President Donald Trump calling for the arrest of six Democratic lawmakers for “seditious behavior,” and even promoting a call for them to be hanged, the White House is walking back what has been described as Trump’s “violent rhetoric,” by saying he wants them to be held accountable.
The Democrats, all veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces or Intelligence Community, recorded a video reminding members of the military and the IC of their legal responsibility to not obey illegal orders.
Trump called their remarks “seditious behavior at the highest level,” and said that they should be “arrested and put on trial.” He also called the six lawmakers “traitors,” and wrote: “Seditious behavior, punishable by death!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked about his attack on the Democratic representatives and senators, defended the president while appearing to attempt to minimize what Democratic leaders called “violent rhetoric.”
“To suggest and encourage that active duty service members defy the chain of command is a very dangerous thing for sitting members of Congress to do,” Leavitt claimed, “and they should be held accountable, and that’s what the president wants to see. ”
When asked if Trump was encouraging political violence, Leavitt replied, “Why aren’t you talking about what these members of Congress are doing to encourage and incite violence?”
“They are literally saying to 1.3 million active duty service members, to defy the chain of command,” she charged.
This afternoon, Spokesliar Karoline Leavitt gaslit the American people by making excuses for Donald Trump’s violence-inciting post calling for the arrest and execution of 6 Congressional Democrats (Sens. Slotkin and Kelly, and Reps. Crow, Deluzio, Goodlander, and Houlahan) over their video reminding military members to not obey illegal orders.
A new breed of unapologetic, mercilessly on-message Democrats rise to the moment
Todd Beeton at The Big Picture:
On November 18, six Democratic members of Congress, all former U.S. military or intelligence officers, posted a video that had a simple message for members of the military:
[“Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.
You must refuse illegal orders.”]
While many on the right responded with performative horror at the video, the fact is, the message communicated by these six members of Congress—including Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), and Rep. Chrissie Houlahan (D-PA)—simply reiterates the laws that govern the oath of enlistment each member of the military takes to the Constitution.
Per The Washington Post:
The UCMJ makes clear that service members are required to obey “any lawful general order or regulation” or they could be “punished as a court-martial may direct.”
The Manual for Courts-Martial states that the requirement to “obey orders does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.”
Even so, Donald Trump and the Pentagon melted down over the video, with Trump calling the six Democrats “traitors” worthy of “death” and with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth moving to potentially court-martial Senator Mark Kelly over it. But far from exhibiting strength, this response by the Trump regime displayed profound weakness. As Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) made clear on MSNBC, Trump is “absolutely telling on himself in the way that he’s reacting to this.”
The video never claimed Trump issued any illegal orders, nor did the six Democrats cite Trump by name. But his freakout was an admission that Trump is the unspoken threat here. The Democrats set the trap, and as he often does, Trump fell right into it.
And now, a week into the back and forth over the video, it sure feels like the administration’s reaction may be backfiring. By threatening Senator Mark Kelly with a literal court-martial, has Trump just elevated a potential 2028 Democratic star? And what does the rollout of the video signal about a potential new era in Democratic communications, one that’s scrappier, more disciplined, and surprisingly unapologetic? Isn’t this precisely what Democratic voters have been clamoring for?
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS”
The first sign that this video had the right-wing back on its heels came the day after it posted, when Fox News had Rep. Jason Crow on to try to call him and his fellow Democrats out for what host Martha MacCallum tried to frame as an anti-military message.
Crow wasn’t having it, turning the message around on MacCallum and accusing her of disparaging the troops by suggesting they couldn’t handle a simple reminder of the actual law of the land. By the time Crow was done, MacCallum was on defense. She even ended the interview praising Crow for his service and thanking him for coming on her show.
Trump no doubt saw this clip, or portions of it, and sensed a potential vulnerability for him in the message being driven by these six Democrats, whom the administration would later dub “the Seditious Six.”
Trump understands the power of such a message coming from members of Congress who themselves are veterans of the military and of U.S. intelligence services. And as Trump tends to do, he sought to turn the Democrats’ strength into a weakness.
So on the morning of November 20th, Trump went on the attack on Truth Social accusing the six Democrats of being “SEDITIOUS” “TRAITORS.”
[...]
Weaponizing the Pentagon Against an American Hero
As we have witnessed over the past 10 months, Trump will choose to weaponize the government he leads in order to obtain the outcome he desires.
And in his second term, surrounded by sycophants who will never question an order, lawful or not, he knew his minions would do his bidding.
And so Hegseth did, when on Monday, the so-called “Department of War” released a statement indicating that, in response to the video, it had initiated an investigation into Senator Kelly, a retired Navy Captain, threatening him with
[“Recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”]
[...]
A New Rising Class of Democratic Leaders
If the way the Democrats played this—from the rollout of the video to blanketing cable news and social media with aggressive disciplined messages amplifying their own patriotism and slamming Trump’s authoirtarianism—feels new for a Democratic Party that is typically scared of its own shadow, too often putting its finger to the wind to find its message and backtracking at the slightest hint of pushback…well, that’s because it is.
Put simply, these are not your typical Democrats. For starters, these six members of Congress stand out due to their careers. As veterans of the U.S. military or intelligence services, they are public servants who are unafraid of facing down enemy combatants in defense of the principles they believe in.
But it is no accident that these six all have something else in common as well: They all entered Congress in the aftermath of Trump’s first election to the presidency.
Senator Elissa Slotkin, Rep. Jason Crow, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan all won election to the House with the class of 2018 in the anti-Trump blue wave. That was the first congressional class of Democrats to be elected after Trump’s first election win. Senator Mark Kelly was subsequently elected in 2020, Rep. Chris Deluzio in 2022, and Rep. Maggie Goodlander in 2024.
For too long, Democratic politics have been dominated by campaign consultants and elected leaders stuck in the pre-Trump world of political norms and guardrails. The 2024 election, and the subsequent failure of Democratic leadership to adequately respond to the unique threat posed by Trump’s second term, highlighted the failure of the pre-Trump mindset. Jill Lawrence recently wrote about this phenomenon, bemoaning the fact that “most Democrats are still practicing by-the-rule-book politics, as Sen. Tammy Duckworth said recently, while ‘Donald Trump and Republicans are shooting referees in the face.’” In her piece, Lawrence called for Democrats who pass the “SOB test” to step up and lead the way. Now we are seeing them do so in real time.
Big ups to the 6 Congressional Democrats (Sens. Slotkin and Kelly, and Reps. Crow, Deluzio, Goodlander, and Houlahan) for making a pro-freedom statement with their “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video.
