Johnson calls for indictment of six Democrats after D.C. grand jury refuses to charge them over military video

House Speaker Mike Johnson didn't flinch. Hours after a D.C. grand jury refused to indict six Democratic lawmakers who participated in a video urging service members to disobey illegal orders last fall, Johnson told reporters the lawmakers should have been charged anyway.

"I think that anytime you're obstructing law enforcement and getting in the way of these sensitive operations, it's a very serious thing, and it probably is a crime. And, yeah, they probably should be indicted."

The grand jury disagreed. Prosecutors failed to meet even the low bar of "probable cause" to convince a majority of the panel. But Johnson's comments reflect a broader frustration among conservatives watching Democrats exploit their military credentials to undermine the chain of command — then wrap themselves in the Constitution when consequences arrive.

The Video That Started It All

Prosecutors launched a probe into six Democrats — Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.), Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.) and Chris Deluzio (Pa.) — after they released a joint video statement in November calling on military service members and intelligence community personnel to defy "illegal orders." All six have military or intelligence backgrounds. The video followed the Trump administration's decision to carry out boat strikes in the Caribbean.

The timing was not subtle. Six sitting members of Congress — all trading on their former uniforms — looked into a camera and told active-duty troops to second-guess the commander in chief. They didn't name a specific unlawful order. They didn't cite a particular legal violation. They issued a blanket call to resist, as The Hill reports.

The Democrats insist they were simply "quoting the law." Johnson told reporters he thinks they went further:

"They were suggesting that they disobey orders, and I think that crosses the line. It's very serious."

A Grand Jury in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro pursued the federal indictment on the grounds that the lawmakers broke federal law by encouraging military personnel to disobey orders. The FBI had previously requested interviews with all six members of Congress, and the lawmakers said in January that they were under investigation.

Tuesday's grand jury shut it down.

That outcome deserves context. In 2024, Kamala Harris received more than 90 percent of the votes cast in Washington, D.C. Getting a D.C. grand jury to indict anyone the left considers a political ally was always going to be a steep climb — not because the law is unclear, but because the jury pool is what it is.

It's exceedingly rare for federal grand juries to refuse prosecutors at the probable cause threshold — it typically happens only a handful of times each year across the entire federal system. According to sources familiar with the investigation, Trump administration officials failed to convince a single juror. Federal grand juries have between 16 and 23 members, with 12 needed to advance an indictment. Not one voted to proceed. In the most Democratic jurisdiction in America, that's less surprising than the headlines suggest.

Democrats Take a Victory Lap

The six lawmakers wasted no time converting the grand jury's refusal into a narrative about authoritarian overreach. At a Capitol press conference Wednesday, Kelly — a retired Navy captain — went directly at the Speaker:

"He's the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He's one of the most powerful people in this country. And if he's going to side at every moment with this administration when they are clearly not on the side of the Constitution, I think he's got to really evaluate why he is there and who he is really serving."

Kelly called the DOJ's attempt to indict the six a "master alarm flashing for our democracy" and labeled the failed prosecution "straight from the authoritarian playbook."

Slotkin matched him beat for beat:

"[Johnson] should take a beat and remember why he's there and that our Founding Fathers designed this as a separate branch of government to provide checks and balances on the president, not salute like a good boy and do what he says every single time."

Notice the framing. Two Democrats who made a video encouraging troops to defy the executive branch are now lecturing the Speaker about constitutional separation of powers. They urged the military — which answers to the commander in chief — to resist orders, then invoked the Founders to scold Johnson for backing the administration. That's not a principled stand. That's a feedback loop dressed in patriotic language.

The Conduct, Not the Verdict

The grand jury's refusal doesn't transform what these lawmakers did into something noble. A D.C. jury declining to indict six Democrats isn't a vindication — it's a venue problem. The underlying conduct remains what it was: elected officials leveraging their military bona fides to produce a political weapon aimed at the military's command structure during active operations.

The government attorneys assigned to the case are political appointees, not career Justice Department prosecutors — a detail that hands critics an easy line of attack. Fair enough. But the critique of the prosecution is not a defense of the video. Democrats want the failed indictment to be the whole conversation. The conversation worth having is about what happens when members of Congress tell troops that the orders coming down the chain of command might not be worth following.

The Pentagon Moves Separately

The criminal prosecution may be dead, but the administrative consequences are still in play. The Pentagon is looking to censure Kelly and lower his retirement rank — a move that could affect his military pension. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced plans in January to demote Kelly's military rank and decrease his pension. Kelly has sued Hegseth to block the demotion, calling it unconstitutional retribution.

Prosecutors could still attempt to secure an indictment again. But the administrative lane — where the rules are different, the jury pool doesn't matter, and the Pentagon has broad authority over retired officers — may prove far more consequential than Tuesday's headline.

Johnson called the conduct what he believed it was. Kelly and Slotkin called him an errand boy for the administration. The grand jury walked away. And the six Democrats are now framing themselves as constitutional heroes persecuted for telling the truth.

The prosecution failed. The question of whether sitting lawmakers should use their offices to tell the military to second-guess the president did not.