Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin said on Tuesday that she was under federal investigation for her participation in a video last year in which she and fellow Democrats implored troops to refuse illegal orders.
Slotkin, a former CIA officer and military veteran who served three tours in Iraq, organized the video with five other Democrats with military and intelligence backgrounds. Donald Trump called it “seditious behavior by traitors” that was “punishable by death”, an assertion that caused outrage and was quickly walked back by the White House, which clarified that the president did not want to execute members of Congress but wanted to see them “held accountable”.
It is unclear what possible crime investigators are probing. The video’s core message – that military officers have a duty to resist unlawful commands – is a fundamental principle of US military law, international law and the US constitution.
Slotkin described the investigation as an effort by an authoritarian president to weaponize the federal government and intimidate her into silence. In a video shared on X, she said: “This is the president’s playbook. Truth doesn’t matter, facts don’t matter, and anyone who disagrees with him become an enemy and he then weaponizes the federal government against them.”
“It’s legal intimidation and physical intimidation meant to get you to shut up,” she said. “Right now, speaking out against the abuse of power is the most patriotic thing we can do.”
Slotkin said she found out about the investigation from the office of Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia and longtime Trump ally, who requested to interview her about the 90-second video. The Guardian reached out to the US attorney for the District of Columbia for comment.
The other Democrats in the video were Arizona senator Mark Kelly and representatives Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, both of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Jason Crow of Colorado.
While the video did not point to any specific action by the Trump administration, it came as Trump carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. “You all swore an oath to protect and defend this constitution,” the lawmakers said in the video. “Right now, the threats to our constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders … You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution.”
Slotkin and Crow both said they were inundated with death threats following Trump’s vitriolic social media post in response to the video, with Slotkin placed under 24/7 Capitol police security. There was a bomb threat at her house, and police were also called to her father’s home in Michigan in a practice known as “swatting” after a caller falsely alleged that he was trying to kill his wife.
“Facts matter little, but the threat matters quite a bit,” Slotkin told the New York Times. “The threat of legal action; the threat to your family; the threat to your staff; the threat to you.”
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, called the video “despicable, reckless and false”, and the Pentagon launched an investigation into Kelly citing “serious allegations of misconduct”. A former US navy officer and astronaut who flew on four space shuttle missions between 2001 and 2011, Kelly told MS Now at the time: “I said something that was pretty simple and non-controversial – and that was that members of the military should follow the law.”
On Monday, he filed a lawsuit seeking to nullify Hegseth’s “chilling” attempt to reduce his rank and pension as punishment for speaking out against the administration. “His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the president or secretary of defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion or even prosecuted,” Kelly said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Hegseth wants our longest-serving military veterans to live with the constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay years or even decades after they leave the military just because he or another secretary of defense doesn’t like what they’ve said. That’s not the way things work in the United States of America, and I won’t stand for it.”
Slotkin shared a similar sentiment, telling the New York Times: “I’ve studied this kind of political authoritarianism in other countries my entire professional life. I just can’t believe I am talking about it in my own country.”
