Six Democrat congressmen recently released a video directed at members of the U.S. military and intelligence communities imploring them to “refuse illegal orders” from President Donald Trump. As former members of the military and intelligence community, they should be ashamed of themselves and retract their insubordinate, ignorant, and politically motivated diatribe.
The video, posted earlier this week, was created by Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa., Rep. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H., Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.
One might expect that their military experience would make them more cautious, not less, about encouraging service members to reflexively doubt the legality of orders from America’s commander in chief. But that’s exactly what they did.
“We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now,” intoned Slotkin. “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” Kelly, Slotkin, and Crow added.
Really? How?
These claims are simply false, no matter how fearful the tone. Military recruiting and morale are at historic highs. If service members are truly under “enormous stress,” why are retention and recruitment numbers soaring?
“Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution,” the congressmen contend in the video. “Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home.”
Really? How exactly? They don’t say.
They add that the “laws are clear” that members of the military “can” and “must” refuse illegal orders and that no one has to carry out orders that “violate the law or our Constitution.”
Everyone in the military knows that, but what does that have to do with anything?
Throughout the short video, they never mention a single Trump administration order—or even a policy area—which they believe violates the Constitution. This vagueness reveals the real purpose of the video—political theater and yet another example of Trump Derangement Syndrome
Kelly claims “this administration is pitting” the military against citizens.” Where is that happening, because if it is, I’m against it too. Crickets.
Is this about immigration enforcement? The deployment of National Guard troops to the border or in blue cities to assist federal immigration officers? They don’t say.
When Crow was interviewed by Fox News’ Martha McCallum about the video he participated in and asked what specific orders that Trump issued to the military that are illegal, Crow couldn’t name one.
The reality is that the military already has robust systems in place to handle questions about the legality of orders and uses that system every day.
Service members are required to follow lawful orders. If they do not follow a lawful general order, or a specific order, they can—and often are—court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for a violation of Article 92, Failure to Obey an Order or Regulation.
If or when they are in doubt about an order’s legality (a rarity), service members can—and do—consult with a uniformed lawyer, called a judge advocate general officer. I know, because I served as a Navy JAG for 30 years and retired as a two-time commanding officer with rank of captain.
The president doesn’t pick up the phone and call a service member and order him to carry out a mission. Military orders flow through multiple levels—from the president to the secretary of defense, through the joint chiefs, to combatant commanders, to senior officers and eventually to units and individual service members. At each level, uniformed lawyers review orders and establish standing rules of engagement and specific rules of engagement for a particular mission.
These congressmen know this, but that apparently didn’t matter to them.
Moreover, military personnel are already trained—and the Department of Defense Law of War manual clearly states—that military personnel have a duty not to comply with orders that are clearly illegal.
History certainly provides instructive examples of genuinely unlawful orders. The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, where Army Lt. William Calley ordered his soldiers to kill unarmed civilians stands as a clear case where subordinates should have refused, as the order was patently unlawful under the laws of war and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
If this video was produced by a bunch of rag tag college students or Marxist professors, no one would care.
That’s not what happened here. These lawmakers’ actions and words undermine good order and discipline in the armed forces by encouraging U.S. military personnel to question the orders of the commander in chief of the armed forces for no good reason, based on nothing more than mere political disagreement.
The video is full of dishonorable statements from people who should know better. By calling on service members to resist Trump’s orders, they are essentially asking military members to make political judgments about which policies to implement—a direct assault on civilian control of the military.
The Democrat congressmen should withdraw the video and apologize. They are undermining the authority of the commander in chief of the armed forces—an authority constitutionally vested in the president.
If anyone is violating their oath to “support and defend the Constitution,” it is them. Encouraging military personnel to disregard legitimate presidential authority based on unspecified, partisan grievances doesn’t protect the Constitution—it subverts it.
