Five United States legislators say they have been contacted by the Justice Department after posting a video on social media calling on members of the US military and intelligence agencies to refuse to follow illegal orders.
The legislators – Senator Elissa Slotkin and US Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio – are all Democrats who previously served in the military, CIA, and naval intelligence.
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The legislators released a video in November as US forces carried out air strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, and as US President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to deploy to major US cities to crack down on undocumented migrants and crime.
“This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” the lawmakers said in the video.
“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or Constitution,” they said.
Following the release of the video, President Trump accused the legislators of “seditious behaviour, punishable by death” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
The FBI opened an inquiry in November into the five legislators, plus Senator Mark Kelly, who also appeared in the video, according to CBS News.
Kelly, in particular, has faced a series of actions for appearing in the video that critics describe as an unconstitutional attack on his First Amendment right to free speech.
Shortly after the video came out, the Defense Department announced it had opened an investigation into Kelly and warned that the senator could face a court-martial depending on the results.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he was seeking to demote Kelly from the rank he reached at his retirement, as well as reduce his retirement pay.
On Monday, Kelly said he had filed a lawsuit against the Defense Department and Hegseth over a campaign of “punitive retribution” that had trampled his free speech rights.
It was not known if Kelly was also being investigated by the Justice Department.
Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, left, and husband US Senator Mark Kelly, Democrats from Arizona, in 2024 [AFP]
‘Trump’s political cronies’
Crow, a former US paratrooper and army ranger, wrote on X that he and his colleagues were under investigation by the Justice Department.
“Trump’s political cronies at the Justice Department are trying to threaten and intimidate us. Well, he’s picked a fight with the wrong people. I will always uphold my oath to the Constitution,” Crow said on X.
Slotkin, Goodlander and Houlahan all shared similar posts on X.
US news outlet CBS News reported that Deluzio had also been contacted by the Justice Department.
“Like my colleagues, I was contacted by federal prosecutors who are investigating me for making a video reminding service members not to follow illegal orders,” Houlahan wrote on X.
“The six of us are being targeted not because we said something untrue, but because we said something President Trump and Secretary Hegseth didn’t want anyone to hear.”
Houlahan said the investigation was “ridiculous,” especially as Trump was contemplating launching attacks to protect free speech in Iran, which is under a communication blackout following widespread antigovernment protests.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has tested the limits of his presidential authority as the commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces, including ordering the attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, which legal experts and governments in Latin America have blasted as extrajudicial killings.
Trump’s deployment of the US National Guard in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC, has also been controversial, as military forces should only be deployed when the US is facing a threat of invasion or domestic unrest.
The Supreme Court in December upheld a decision to block Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the state of Illinois due to insufficient evidence of his claim that a “rebellion” was under way, setting a legal precedent for other US states.
