'Seditious behavior': Trump accuses Democrats who made video reminding the military not to follow illegal orders of a crime — but is it?
A group of six Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds made a video posted to social media earlier this week reminding active duty service members that they can refuse to follow illegal orders.
In the 90-second clip , the lawmakers — Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona, as well as Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan and Chris Deluzio, both of Pennsylvania — accused the administration of “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”
“Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution,” they said. “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. … No one has to carry out orders that violate the law.”
President Trump responded by accusing the lawmakers of sedition, calling them “traitors” and suggesting they be arrested and put on trial.
“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” Trump wrote in one of a flurry of posts to his Truth Social account on Thursday morning. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.”
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” the president wrote in another .
Trump also reshared a post that read : “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!!”
What constitutes ‘seditious behavior’?
Collectively, the Democratic lawmakers who made the video have decades of experience working in the military and intelligence fields. Slotkin served three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst. Kelly flew combat missions during the Gulf War before NASA selected him to pilot the space shuttle. Crow, an Army Ranger, completed three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, receiving a Bronze Star Medal for his service. Houlahan spent three years on Air Force active duty and more than a dozen years in the Air Force Reserve. Deluzio served as a surface warfare officer in the Navy and was deployed to Iraq with an Army civil affairs unit. Goodlander was an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve for 11 years, reaching the rank of lieutenant.
Despite what Trump and his team have claimed, none of these lawmakers “are literally saying to 1.3 million active duty service members to defy the chain of command [and] not to follow lawful orders,” as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put it on Thursday.
Instead, the Democrats explicitly and repeatedly referred to “unlawful orders” as a way of reminding service members what U.S. law allows (and often requires) them to do if they’re directed to break the law.
When someone joins the U.S. military, they swear an oath of enlistment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies” and “obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me.” What kind of orders are they obligated to obey? “Any lawful general order or regulation,” according to Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice , which was enacted in 1950 and applies to all branches of the military. If a service member fails to obey a lawful order, they can be “punished as a court-martial may direct.”
