Three House Democrats confirmed on Wednesday they have been approached by federal prosecutors investigating their participation in a November video about military duty, widening the circle of legislators being targeted by the Trump administration.
Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania disclosed that the US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, led by Jeanine Pirro, had requested interviews about the 90-second video in which they said troops don’t need to comply with illegal orders.
“Donald Trump called for my arrest, prosecution, and execution – all because I said something he didn’t like,” Crow said in a statement. “Now he’s pressuring his political appointees to harass me for daring to speak up and hold him accountable. I won’t be intimidated and will keep fighting to uphold my oath to the Constitution and defend our country.”
Goodlander framed the government’s response as alarming and instructive.
“No matter the threats, I am not backing down,” she said in a video posted on X. “It is sad, telling and downright dangerous that simply stating a bedrock principle of American law caused the president, our commander in chief, to threaten violence against me, and to weaponize the Department of Justice.”
Goodlander added that she once served in the Department of Justice and she knew “that federal prosecutors have more control over the life and liberty of the American people than any other peacetime force”.
The announcements bring the number of lawmakers who have publicly confirmed contact with federal prosecutors to five, after the Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin’s revelation on Tuesday that she was under investigation. The Pentagon secretary, Pete Hegseth, formally censured the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, a retired navy captain, in January and launched administrative proceedings that could result in rank reduction and pension cuts. Kelly has responded with litigation, arguing the Pentagon’s actions violate constitutional protections.
The video in question featured six Democratic lawmakers, each of whom previously served in the military, CIA or naval intelligence. In it, they reminded service members of their duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to disobey illegal commands – a principle regularly taught in military training.
Trump said the message was “seditious” and floated the possibility of capital punishment, though he subsequently walked back the death penalty reference while insisting the lawmakers remained in serious jeopardy. Everyone in the video – which also included the Pennsylvania representative Chris Deluzio – have now been contacted by either the FBI or federal prosecutors regarding their message to service members.
“By sending the FBI and now DoJ after Rep Deluzio and the other members of Congress who stated the law in a recent video, it’s obvious that this administration is engaged in a harassment campaign against their political rivals,” Deluzio spokesperson Zoe Bluffstone said. “Congressman Deluzio won’t be intimidated and will keep doing the job he was elected to do.”
Houlahan suggested the investigation’s true motivation was stifling political speech. “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,” she told NBC News in a statement.
The federal targeting represents an extraordinary use of prosecutorial power against sitting legislators for protected political speech. According to Crow’s office, Pirro’s office reached out last week seeking an interview about the video.
Government watchdog groups have condemned the investigations as authoritarian overreach. David Janovsky, acting director of the constitution project at the project on government oversight, described the prosecutions as an assault on constitutional principles. “A sitting president attempting to prosecute his political opponents just for saying something he disagrees with is a hallmark of authoritarianism,” he said in a statement.
The lawmakers had encountered an earlier round of federal interest in November, when FBI agents approached congressional security officials seeking interviews. Four of the House members responded with a joint statement accusing Trump of deploying the bureau “as a tool to intimidate and harass” the lawmakers.
In her own video statement about the investigation on Tuesday, Slotkin accused Trump of following a familiar authoritarian pattern. “To be clear, this is the president’s playbook,” she said. “Truth doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter, and anyone who disagrees with him becomes an enemy, and he then weaponizes the federal government against them.”
