Two of the 'Seditious Six' Democrats Defy DOJ Investigation Into Video Urging Military to Refuse Orders

Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan announced Thursday that they will not comply with the Department of Justice's investigation into a video in which they and four other Democratic lawmakers urged U.S. service members to refuse orders from the Trump administration. Slotkin wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro declaring her non-compliance. Houlahan posted a video to X delivering her own refusal.

The DOJ had requested interviews with both lawmakers regarding a November video in which all six Democrats — Slotkin, Houlahan, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Chris Deluzio, and Rep. Maggie Goodlander — looked into the camera and told members of the military to disobey their commander-in-chief. All six served as either military or intelligence officers. Every House member who appeared in the video has been contacted by the Justice Department, according to Crow.

President Trump accused the six of engaging in "seditious behavior." Secretary of War Pete Hegseth dubbed them the "Seditious Six." Now two of them have responded — not with cooperation, but with defiance.

What the Video Actually Said

The November video featured the six lawmakers speaking in tandem, delivering a coordinated message aimed directly at uniformed personnel:

"This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders."

Read that again. Six sitting members of Congress — people who swore their own oaths — recorded a produced video urging active-duty military and intelligence officers to defy orders from the duly elected president of the United States. Not in a floor speech. Not in a letter to the Secretary of Defense. In a video distributed directly to the public and aimed squarely at the rank and file.

The phrase "illegal orders" does a lot of heavy lifting here. It presupposes that orders from the Trump administration are, or will be, illegal — without specifying which ones. It plants the seed of insubordination under the cover of conscience. The six lawmakers didn't cite a specific policy, a specific directive, or a specific legal violation. They issued a blanket invitation to disobey, as Daily Caller reports.

Defiance Dressed as Principle

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, framed her refusal to cooperate with the DOJ investigation as a stand for liberty. In her letter to Bondi and Pirro, she urged the Department to retain their records on the case "in case I decide to sue for infringement of my constitutional rights." She also posted on X:

"This is about more than just my case. It's about the ability to speak your mind and have freedom from fear."

Freedom from fear. A senator who participated in a video designed to encourage military personnel to resist presidential authority now claims she is the one being intimidated.

Houlahan, a former Air Force officer, was more blunt. In her video posted to X, she addressed the DOJ's interview request directly:

"I will not be doing that."

She followed up:

"When the power of the federal government is turned toward intimidating the people, including veterans who have sworn to defend the Constitution, and duly elected representatives of the people, for speaking the truth, that is not justice."

And in a separate post:

"I refuse to be intimidated by the Trump Administration. Not only because our right to free speech needs to be protected, but because this so-called investigation is an attempt to distract from the real issues at hand. (See today's jobs report.)"

So a DOJ investigation into whether sitting lawmakers encouraged military insubordination is a "distraction" — but the jobs report is the real story. That tells you everything about how seriously these lawmakers take civilian control of the military when they aren't the civilians in charge.

The Free Speech Defense Doesn't Work Here

Crow, a former Army officer, offered the most politically transparent framing of all:

"Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice as a weapon to harass and intimidate me, in particular, as well as the other members who filmed that video."

Every single one of them has settled on the same playbook: recast the investigation as persecution, invoke free speech, and dare the administration to proceed. It is a strategy built on the assumption that media sympathy will shield them from accountability.

But free speech has never been a blanket license for elected officials to undermine the chain of command. Members of Congress hold positions of extraordinary authority and trust. When they produce a video telling service members to refuse orders — not hypothetical future members, but current ones — they aren't exercising the same rights as a citizen writing a letter to the editor. They are leveraging their institutional credibility, their military backgrounds, and their security clearances to sow distrust in lawful civilian authority.

Imagine six Republican lawmakers, all veterans, recording a video during the Obama administration urging troops to refuse orders on, say, the Iran deal or the drawdown in Afghanistan. The word "seditious" would have been the mildest term deployed by the press. Investigations would have been demanded by the very people now crying foul.

Kelly Goes to Court

Sen. Mark Kelly, meanwhile, chose a different route. In January, Kelly filed a lawsuit against the Department of War and Secretary Hegseth over efforts to demote his retirement rank as Navy Captain — a direct consequence of his participation in the November video. His suit alleges the actions are "unlawful and unconstitutional."

Kelly's lawsuit and the refusals by Slotkin and Houlahan reveal a coordinated strategy: fight the investigation on every front, legal and political, while framing the entire affair as government overreach. The six are not acting as individuals responding to a probe. They are acting as a bloc, executing a unified resistance campaign.

That should concern anyone who believes the military answers to the president, not to a self-appointed committee of congressional veterans who lost an election and decided the new administration's orders might not deserve obedience.

What the DOJ Is Actually Doing

The Department of Justice requested interviews. Not arrests. Not indictments. Interviews. The standard first step in any federal investigation — a conversation. Slotkin and Houlahan refused even that. They have preemptively escalated a routine investigative step into a constitutional showdown, which strongly suggests they'd rather fight in the press than answer questions in a room.

Neither the DOJ nor Houlahan's office responded to requests for comment. Slotkin's office referred inquiries to her video on X. The silence from the Department, paired with the theatrics from the lawmakers, creates an asymmetry the six are clearly banking on. They get the microphone. The investigators get the process.

The Larger Pattern

This is not an isolated incident. It is the latest expression of a posture the Democratic Party adopted the moment Trump took office: treat every exercise of executive authority as illegitimate, then claim victimhood when the administration responds. The cycle is self-reinforcing. Provoke, claim persecution, fundraise, repeat.

These six lawmakers did not stumble into a casual conversation that was misinterpreted. They sat for a produced video. They rehearsed lines. They delivered them in tandem for maximum impact. They distributed the video publicly with the explicit goal of reaching military personnel. And now they want to treat the entirely foreseeable consequence — a federal investigation — as proof that democracy is under siege.

The contradiction is breathtaking. They told the military to defy the president. Then they told the Justice Department they would defy its investigation. At what point does principled dissent become a pattern of obstruction dressed in a flag?

Six lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds leveraged that credibility to encourage insubordination, and now two of them refuse to even sit for an interview about it. The DOJ has every reason to investigate. The American public has every reason to expect cooperation. And the men and women in uniform — the ones these lawmakers claimed to be protecting — deserve leaders who respect the chain of command, even when they don't like who's at the top.

Refusing to answer questions doesn't make you brave. It makes you a senator who knows the answers won't help.