(WASHINGTON) — Several Democrats accused by President Donald Trump of “seditious behavior” defended their message to military members that they can refuse illegal order. The president and administration officials suggested the action could be punishable by law.
The video featuring six Democrats who served in the military or in the intelligence community set off more than a dozen social media posts by Trump, who called them “traitors” and said their action could be “punishable by death.”
“I think it’s important to say that there is nothing more American than standing up for the Constitution, that’s what we were doing. President didn’t like it, so now he calls for us to be hanged,” Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly said on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” on Thursday night.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, on MS NOW, said the message to military members was “chapter and verse” from the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“I think his reaction is just characteristic of a political system that no one is proud of right now,” she said.
The president, appearing on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Friday, continued to lash out at the lawmakers.
“These are bad people. These are people that, in my opinion, broke the law. Now, what happens to them? I can’t tell you, but they broke the law,” Trump said.
But after some bipartisan backlash to his comments about the death penalty, Trump softened somewhat.
“I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death … That was seditious behavior, that was a big deal. You know, nothing’s a big deal, today’s a different world,” he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday was forced to clarify to reporters on Thursday that “no,” Trump does not want to execute members of Congress.
But Leavitt called the video by Democrats “dangerous,” and falsely characterized Democrats of encouraging military members “to defy the president’s lawful orders.”
“It perhaps is punishable by law. I’m not a lawyer. I’ll leave that to the Department of Justice and the Department of War to decide,” Leavitt said.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an appearance on “Hannity” on Fox News on Wednesday, said he wanted to know why the lawmakers released the video.
“What is the reason that they all went on a video and encouraged young men and women to defy court orders without even giving a hint of what’s illegal, without even giving any suggestion of what law or what order they’re being asked to violate. You cannot do that in this country, especially if you’re a leader,” Blanche said.
“So what does the investigation look like? I think they should be held to account. I think that those congressmen should be required to answer questions and to answer questions about why they did what they did. And the American people deserve that, and so does President Trump,” he added.
When pressed if an investigation was underway, the deputy attorney general responded: “Look, we don’t, Sean, you know we don’t talk about investigations.”
In the video, which was released on Tuesday, none of the Democrats mentioned any specific illegal orders given to service members. It’s not clear whether service members have been asked to break the law.
Both Kelly and Slotkin, when asked why they felt the need to share the video message, pointed to recent administration actions that have raised legal challenges, including lethal strikes against alleged drug boats in Latin America and the deployment of National Guard troops in U.S. cities.
“He has talked about sending troops into more U.S. cities, he’s talked about invoking the Insurrection Act,” Kelly told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“All of us had been getting outrage from folks in uniform, folks in the intelligence community saying like, ‘Hey, we’re really concerned,'” Slotkin said on MS NOW. “‘You know, I’m being deployed to a city or, you know, inside the United States, or I’m being asked to conduct strikes in the Mediterranean. And I don’t understand … like how this is legal?'”
Slotkin corrected that she meant strikes in the Caribbean Sea, where dozens of people have been killed in strikes the administration says is part of its “war” against drug cartels in the region.
The administration has defended the legality of the boat strikes and the use of National Guard troops in American cities, including Washington and Los Angeles.
“They’re suggesting … that the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order that is given to this United States military by this commander in chief and through this chain of command, through the secretary of war, is lawful,” Leavitt said on Thursday.
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