Update: The Pentagon, under Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, has now announced that it is investigating one of the six Democrats, Senator Mark Kelly, because of “serious allegations of misconduct.” It said the review would “determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.” Because Kelly is a retired U.S. naval officer, he is required to remain available for recall to active military duty, and is subject to prosecution under military law.
The next day, reports came out that the FBI was opening investigations into all six Democrats—Senators Elissa Slotkin and Kelly, and Representatives Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan. Slotkin said that the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division was involved. The FBI refused to say anything about the investigation.
It's unclear at this point what these “investigations” by the military and FBI may lead to. But if Trump and Hegseth actually move to court-martial Kelly on sedition charges, that could carry a potential death penalty. For the other Democratic Congress members, a conviction on seditious conspiracy could result in a 20-year sentence.
The article below that we posted last week gets into the importance and implications of the call from the six Democratic Congress members to the troops to not obey illegal orders, and Trump’s threats to prosecute and even execute them for this.
These unprecedented moves against members of Congress for their political speech need to be watched closely. The six senators and representatives must be defended from these outrageous and dangerous attacks, as part of the sustained, nonviolent but determined protest of millions, centered in Washington, DC, to drive out Trump and the whole fascist regime.
Early on Tuesday, November 18, six Democratic members of Congress posted a short video message speaking “directly to members of the military and the intelligence community.” The heart of the message was this:
[Y]ou all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. And 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. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution…. Now, more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans.
Don’t give up the ship.
(Go here to watch the whole video.)
These two core points—that U.S. troops and officials take an oath to defend the Constitution, and that U.S. military law says they are legally required not to obey illegal orders—are indisputably true. But this statement sent Donald Trump and the MAGA fascists he leads into a murderous fury. They unleashed a wave of statements on social media, including this from Trump:
It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. 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.
Another Trump post said, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” And Trump shared this from a supporter: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
In addition, Pentagon press spokesman Sean Parnell and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt both strongly implied that if an order comes from Trump, it is by definition “legal” and must be obeyed. Senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller said that the six Congress members’ statement was “insurrection — plainly, directly, without question.” (Insurrection carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.)
Stop and think how incredibly dangerous this is! The President of the U.S. is calling for executing political opponents because they publicly called for soldiers to obey the Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Think back on the ominous prediction made by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just over a year ago (after the fascist majority of the Court ruled that Trump should have immunity for virtually any crime committed in office):
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
How close are we coming to Sotomayor’s nightmare coming true?
Trump may or may not attempt actual trials of the six Democratic senators and representatives at this time—but he has already put out an unmistakable call to his most fanatical followers that it is their duty to attack these members of Congress. All six have reported a massive increase in death threats against them after Trump’s posts; Elissa Slotkin, senator from Michigan, said on Thursday that the number was approaching one thousand!
And if Trump is ready to unleash this level of hatred against his opponents in the ruling class, what does that say about what he will do to Black and Brown people, to LGBTQ people, to decent people from across the country who refuse to go along and speak out against MAGA fascism? Trump’s ravings carry the stench of massacres and concentration camps, if he remains in power and consolidates fascist rule.
In the wake of Trump’s posts, there were on-the-mark reactions. The six Democrats issued a statement affirming their position, and saying that “Every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence. This is a time for moral clarity. In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage.”
Senator Chris Murphy: Trump just called for Democratic members of Congress to be executed.
Senator Chris Murphy posted his response, including this:
If you are a person of influence in this country, maybe it’s time to pick a fucking side. If you are a Republican in Congress, if you are a Republican governor, maybe it’s time to draw a line in the sand and say that under no circumstances should the President of the United States be calling on his political opposition to be hanged. We are at a very dangerous moment right now.… Anybody who has a voice or a soapbox in this country needs to draw a line in the sand and say that it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to call on the murder of his political opposition.
But as a whole, there wasn’t nearly the uproar that should have been provoked. Soon Trump’s calls for political murder seemed to fade into “just another story in a busy news cycle”—sort of a collective shrug and an implied “that’s just Trump being Trump.”
NO!
To those who shrugged and moved on, to those who think Trump will somehow fall of his own accord: it should tell us two things that “voices on the inside”—who may be aware of developments and prospects that those of us on the outside are not—are raising the alarm in this way, and doing so at great personal risk.
Elissa Slotkin speech on how she sees the danger of Trump, October 30, 2025
First, it tells us that they think, as proponents of this system, that the Trump fascist regime is an extreme threat to how they see what this country should be. In a speech three weeks ago, Slotkin laid out how she sees that danger: "The president is going to fundamentally redefine the use of force in America. What's it all for? What I'm about to say and my theory of the case is something I never imagined saying. I believe Trump is reshaping the country to hold on to power."
While we, at revcom.us, have a fundamentally different understanding than Slotkin does of America, the system that rules in this country and its role in the world, she is nonetheless sounding an alarm that needs to wake people up widely.
Second, it tells us that it is on the millions of decent people in every corner of society who refuse to accept a fascist America to act now—in sustained, nonviolent but determined protest, centered in Washington, DC. This sustained protest must grow to such numbers that it creates a "political earthquake from below," interacting with the sharpening splits and divisions within the dominant and ruling institutions such that the Trump fascist regime is removed from power.
This is necessary, and it is still possible—but there's not much time. As the organization, RefuseFascism.org, which has been calling and organizing for this kind of sustained nonviolent outpouring wrote in their call for “The Fall of the Trump Fascist Regime”:
History is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. It is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined.
The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.
