Grand jury declines criminal charges against 6 Democrats who urged military to reject illegal orders
Washington — A federal grand jury declined Tuesday to indict six congressional Democrats who angered President Trump last year by recording a video telling members of the military that they should reject “unlawful orders,” according to three sources familiar with the matter, including one within the Justice Department.
Democratic lawmakers are the latest Trump foes the Justice Department has filed charges against, following James Comey, former FBI director And New York Attorney General Letitia James. After the lawmakers’ video was released in November, the president called their comments “seditious” and demanded that they be “arrested and tried”.
News of the indictment’s dismissal was first reported by The New York Times.
CBS News has contacted the Justice Department for comment.
Two sources briefed on the matter told CBS News that the Justice Department sought to charge the lawmakers under a criminal statute known as 18 USC § 2387.
This law threatens with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison any person who “counsels, counsels, exhorts, or in any way provokes or attempts to provoke insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty on the part of a member of the military.” This requires the intent to “interfere, harm, or influence the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the military.”
The six Democrats publicly condemned the decision and applauded the grand jury.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said the president was seeking to “weaponize our justice system against his perceived enemies,” while Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona called it an “outrageous abuse of power.” Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado wrote in a statement, “Don’t abandon ship,” and Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania said, “I will not be intimidated for a single second. »
Meanwhile, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire said the grand jury “honored our Constitution” and Rep. Chrissy Houlihan of Pennsylvania called the grand jurors’ refusal to indict “good news for the Constitution.”
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina criticized the Justice Department’s decision and praised the grand jury for declining to indict the lawmakers.
“Political fighting by either side is undermining America’s criminal justice system, which is the gold standard worldwide. Fortunately, in this case, a jury saw the attempted charges for what they really were,” he wrote on X Wednesday morning. “The use of political law is neither normal nor acceptable, and must stop.”
It is highly unusual for grand juries to reject indictments, but the Justice Department has had difficulty with grand juries in recent months, particularly in politically charged cases. After a federal judge dismissed federal charges against Comey and James in Virginia, two different grand juries declined to re-indict James for bank fraud.
“The attempt to indict these members of Congress is shocking, even more so than the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James. It is not enough that the grand jury refused to indict. All of the Justice Department attorneys involved in submitting this indictment to the grand jury violated the rules of professional conduct, including those of their supervisors,” said Kyle Boynton, a former federal prosecutor who also advised department lawyers on the Accountability Office’s rules of professional conduct professional.
“No lawyer, competent or not, could have looked at the law and concluded that this clearly protected speech constituted a crime,” Boynton added. “Since the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will do nothing, the district court should immediately open an investigation into this misconduct and make appropriate referrals to the D.C. Bar.”
Tuesday’s attempted indictment stems from a 90-second video in which the six Democrats — all of whom are military veterans or former members of the intelligence community — told military personnel that they “must refuse illegal orders.”
Lawmakers said the video was motivated by a series of proposals by Mr. Trump to use the military in ways they view as illegal, such as his 2016 proposal kill the families of terrorists or his threat send troops to Chicago. The video also came amid a months-long campaign of U.S. strikes against suspected drug boats, which some congressional Democrats have called illegal.
Legal experts say members of the military are required to follow legal ordersbut they are not required to follow illegal orders and, in some cases, when the orders are “manifestly illegal”, they are required to disobey them.
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the video “sows doubt and confusion, which only puts our warriors in danger.” Meanwhile, Mr. Trump accused Democrats of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” »
A week after the video was released, lawmakers have been notified that the FBI had opened an investigation into this. Last month, most of the Democrats who appeared in the video said they received inquiries from the Department of Justice, including interview requests from DC U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro in some cases.
In Kelly’s case, the Pentagon attempted to downgrade the retired Navy captain’s rank and retirement pay, accusing him of undermining the chain of command. Kelly sued Hegseth over the decision, which he called an act of political retaliation. This case is still waiting.
Efforts to indict the lawmakers have drawn sharp criticism from Democrats. Sen. Adam Schiff of California, a longtime Trump devotee, wrote on Tuesday that the six members of Congress were “simply stating the obvious” in their video about the illegal orders.
“The fact that the Justice Department is even considering such action demonstrates the extent to which a repressive regime currently runs this country,” Schiff said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters Tuesday that Democrats “should probably be indicted.”
