Federal prosecutors failed to bring charges on Tuesday against six Democratic lawmakers who urged service members to refuse illegal orders, angering President Donald Trump, who had called for jail time, US media reported.
Sources told the New York Times and Washington Post that a federal grand jury — composed of local citizens in Washington — rejected the Justice Department’s attempts to indict the Democratic lawmakers who posted a short video urging conscientious service.
In the video, posted to social media in November, members of Congress called on the military to “refuse illegal orders” and featured Arizona’s Mark Kelly, Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire.
In a statement posted to her Instagram account on Tuesday night, Slotkin reiterated that the 90-second video “simply quoted the law,” adding, “hopefully, this ends this politicised investigation for good.”
The Post noted that it is “exceedingly rare” for federal prosecutors to strike out in a grand jury proceeding, because they “need to convince only a majority of grand jurors that there is probable cause that a crime was committed — a relatively low threshold.”
The elected officials — all of whom have served in the military or the nation’s intelligence agencies — never specified which orders to refuse, but Trump has heavily relied on the military in his second term, both domestically and abroad.
In the United States, the 79-year-old Republican has ordered the National Guard into US cities to support his immigration crackdown, often over the objections of local leaders.
The president has also ordered strikes abroad, including attacks in Nigeria and Iran and a series of lethal actions on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed at least 130 people, which experts say were illegal.
After the video was circulated on social media, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, “THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW,” later calling it “SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.”
In another post, Trump said the behaviour was “punishable by DEATH!”
In addition to the Justice Department’s attempt to secure an indictment, the Pentagon said in November that it was considering a court-martial against Kelly, a former astronaut, in an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s response.
Later that month, Democratic lawmakers accused Trump of using the FBI to “intimidate” members of Congress and said the agency had requested interviews with them following their criticism of the president.
