Arizona Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly said Monday the threat of a court-martial for a video he and other senators released telling military members not to follow illegal orders is an effort to silence the president’s political opponents.
Kelly, a retired Navy captain, was one of six Democratic lawmakers with backgrounds in the military or intelligence agencies who appeared in the video that was posted on social media in mid-November.
President Donald Trump alleged the lawmakers had committed “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” for telling members of the military and intelligence communities that they “can” and “must refuse illegal orders.”
Kelly said during a press conference that he and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot during a town hall in 2011, have experienced a sharp increase in threats in the weeks since Trump reacted negatively to the video.
“My family knows the cost of political violence. My wife, Gabby, was shot in the head and nearly died while speaking with her constituents,” Kelly said. “The president should understand this too. He has been the target of political violence himself.”
Kelly then listed off other recent instances of political violence, including the killing of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the arson at the official home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk during a rally at Utah Valley University.
“Every other president we have ever had in the history of this nation would have tried to heal the country,” Kelly said. “But we all know Donald Trump, he uses every single opportunity to divide us, and that’s dangerous.”
The Defense Department has announced officials are looking into recalling Kelly to active duty for a potential court-martial. The FBI has also contacted the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms to request interviews with the six lawmakers in the video.
Kelly said he and the other Democrats in the video would not be intimidated or silenced by Trump’s comments or the investigations.
“It’s a dangerous moment for the United States of America when the president and his loyalists use every lever of power to silence United States senators for speaking up,” Kelly said. “But we all know that this isn’t about me and it’s not about the others in that video.
“They’re trying to send a message to retired service members, to government employees, the members of the military, to elected officials and to all Americans who are thinking about speaking up — you better keep your mouth shut, or else.”
Video caused stir
The lawmakers’ video reminded servicemembers they’d sworn an oath to the Constitution, something Kelly said shouldn’t have been controversial.
“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant,” the Democrats said in the video. “But whether you’re serving in the CIA, in the Army, or Navy, or the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.”
Kelly declined to say directly during the press conference if the video was a response to ongoing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea that Trump and others in the administration have said are shipping illegal substances to the United States.
“I think it’s good for people to get a reminder. And we wanted to show that we had their back and we understood the situation they were in,” Kelly said. “And we said something that is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to the law of armed combat.”
Investigations opened
The House and Senate Armed Services Committees have each opened investigations into the strikes after The Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a verbal order to make sure everyone died during a Sept. 2 strike on one of the boats.
Kelly said that he has “tremendous confidence” in committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi and ranking member Jack Reed of Rhode Island. But he repeatedly criticized Hegseth as unqualified, saying he often “runs around on a stage like he’s a 12-year-old playing army.”
“If there is anyone who needs to answer questions in public and under oath, it is Pete Hegseth,” Kelly said.
The Armed Services Committee, he said, should have both a public hearing and one for senators in a classified setting to get more details on the strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, including whether the Trump administration has a strategy.
Kelly said if Trump wants to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, then he must make that clear so Congress can have a debate and Americans can have a say in a potential war.
“Regime change as a policy in the United States, generally, in our history, has not worked out well. Think of South Vietnam, think of the Bay of Pigs, Iraq and Afghanistan. It results in the deaths of U.S. service members without the intended outcome,” Kelly said. “And in this case, I don’t even think we know the intended outcome. The president needs to make a case to the American people when he is about to put thousands of American men and women in harm’s way.”
–Jennifer Shutt, Florida Phoenix
Endless dark money says
Orange terrorist wants to kill an actual veteran and navy commander , nasa astronaut. I say end the republican terrorism! Lock them up and hang them for treason! They deserve no less!
Frank says
How many have they murdered illegally in the Caribbean 200? How many have starved from us aid cuts 7000000? How many Americans will die within a year because of republican policy 150000? How many have we helped starve to death in Gaza 300000? How many immigrants have been injured or killed by masked agents6000? Time to burn this fascist oligarchy to ashes.. imagine fighting on the beaches of Normandy for your grandkid to just vote fascists back in.
Kennan says
Cognitive decline doesn’t get better, it gets worse and worse overtime.
Donald J Vonn, Doucheberg at his best is an imbecile. At his worst a paranoid Warmongering, Genocide supporting modern day Nazi.
What he is however; a narcissistic, pedo apologetic, racist, America hating, transactional “Dictator in training”.
TAKE YOUR PICK MAGA. It’s all bad.
Jim says
I am constantly and continually amazed that any Americans can see what is going on and somehow justify Trump and his cronies.
Trump called for the execution of those that participated in this video. And what did they do to deserve that? They pointed out the existing rules for our military that require them to refuse any unlawful order. They did not call for our military to disobey the president as long as orders are lawful. And I want to point out that almost all of those participants honorably served this country in our military. Must I remind you that we have President Bone Spurs as commander in chief.
Now these folks are facing death threats; the very thing the “conservatives” screamed about the Democrats after Charlie Kirk was murdered. Seems to me that hate speech that leads to such threats is only okay if the “conservatives” do it. How honorable…
And we have other military laws which specifically do not allow our military to deliberately kill our enemies once they have been rendered combat ineffective as when their boat is blown out of the water but they somehow survive and are floating in the wreckage. Yet our “Secretary of War”, a most virile man, ordered a second (or fourth – depends on the latest revelations) strike to assure them. He may have even said “kill them all”.
This isn’t the United States that I’ve grown up in and love. We’ve always been the “good guys” and we’ve done a fair job of investigating our failures and lapses and holding the appropriate party responsible. I’m going to watch the Congressional investigation of this very carefully and see what they find out actually happened and who ordered what and when. It certainly sounds like Hegseth committed a war crime or murder. How can anyone be proud of this action?
I’m sure our “allies”, if we have any left, are looking at our current behavior and wondering what has happened to American morality. We are in a dark place now and it’s very disappointing to see this country sink so low. Again, I ask MAGA how you can see what is happening and be proud?
Skibum says
Senator Kelly and the others merely repeat what our military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice states, reminding everyone of the responsibility of military service members not to obey any unlawful orders, and the unhinged, convicted felon president’s response to those members of Congress is: KILL THEM!?
Some of the pedo protecting prez’s maga supplicants claim “there are no illegal orders”, which is patently false! Anyone who knows even a little bit about the Nuremberg trials that took place at the end of WWII, or the court martials that occurred after U.S. soldiers were given orders to kill civilian villagers in Vietnam understand the need for these type of reminders especially now with a president and “secretary of war crimes” bent on unleashing horrendous military power, and death, upon civilians who we are not at war with!
Even the orange faced terror’s made up justification for using American military weapons to kill people in boats out in the open ocean is undermined by his own actions. He wants us to believe, without any evidence, that the numerous boats that were blown up and the people in them, now more than 80 in total who were killed, were “narco-terrorists” involved in drug trafficking. But no drugs have been recovered, the identities of those on board were never verified, and the orders given with “maximum lethality” according to secdef ensured that nobody will ever know who they were or what they were carrying in the boats, if anything.
And to top it off, potential drug trafficking is not a concern for the convicted felon president, who just a couple of days ago gave the former president of Honduras, a convicted drug trafficker who was investigated by our federal authorities, convicted and sentenced to prison, a presidential pardon!!!
No, drumph has no concern about the drug trade, and his efforts and illegal orders are meant to control, intimidate, threaten anyone who dares defy him… including U.S. congress members who only stood before TV cameras and reminded our military members that they should NOT follow orders given to them that are unlawful. And for that they are under special protection from the idiot prez’ own maga sheeple who are seeking vengeance and want to kill them.
This is just one more reason why the current occupier of the WH needs to be removed from office, tried and convicted for his crimes against this nation, and sentenced to a very long prison sentence.
Laurel says
There is more to this story, and I don’t only mean going to war in Venezuela over oil. Think about it. If you were a Venezuelan drug trafficker, after so many boats got blasted out of the water, would you jump in the same style boat, and speed through the same water area? No, you wouldn’t! I’m getting really suspicious of this action. It appears to be a setup. If these same boats continue in the same waters, right through an American armata of ships and aircraft, they are either fake (after the first couple of boats), or they have been lied to. Something here is amiss.
As for Trump pardoning of Hernandez, Trump doesn’t do these things due to cognitive decline, as some commenters prefer to believe, he is constantly pushing the boundaries of what we will accept. This is very intentional.
As for Kelly, he is the real deal! Trump hates men like Kelly and McCain, as he knows he can never control them, and never come close to being the true person these two men became. He is well aware of it.
Skibum says
Laurel, I agree completely.
And I have been very suspicious from the very beginning of the convicted felon prez’ order to send our miitary down to the waters off of Venezuela and attack and sink boats, killing all witnesses. You know… dead men tell no tales.
Coming from a law enforcement background, I know exactly what a legal, justifiable, well planned and properly executed drug interdiction investigation of “narco-terrorists” in possession of illicit drugs is supposed to look like. And I think we all are aware of what an actual war looks like. What drumph and his idiot sycophant Hegseth have been ordering our military to do is neither war or a law enforcement operation – which if it had been the latter it would be under the control of our U.S. Coast Guard, which has many, many years of expertise in carrying out such drug operations on the high seas.
My suspicions, along with many others who know how these drug interdictions are handled, are well founded. Here, everything is handled from a distance – WRONG! Here, nobody anywhere is taking the time to actually verify who are these people in these boats? WRONG again! Here, there is absolutely no verifiable evidence of drugs onboard because the boats are simply targeted from the air and blown to smithereens, eliminating any evidence of criminal activity that would be extremely valuable to help the American public understand and accept the criminal intent that our military was taking action against. WRONG again! Here, in at least one video documented incident of a military strike, nearly all occupants were killed… murdered, actually, because in law enforcement drug operations the U.S. does NOT arbitrarily kill drug suspects outright. But there were two survivors, clinging to debris in the water, fighting to survive. They should have been picked up, detained and used for investigative purposes, but, again, the order was given to target and kill them in the water, as if they had any means at all to be some type of threat, which they clearly were not. WRONG again, and in clear violation of this nation’s, and international law!
That is why I am so suspicious. It is almost exactly like the murderous Mohammed bin Salman ordering the killing and dismembering of journalist Jamal Kashoggi, destroying all of the evidence, covering up the crime with lie after lie, and then telling everyone there is nothing to see here! If all were above board off of the coast of Venezuela and the U.S. was conducting a standard, proper use of necessary force in their efforts to stop drug traffickers, we wouldn’t be suspicious or even need to have a conversation like this.
As you said, drumph is pushing the boundaries, but way past what is proper, what is legal, and what is moral. It won’t stop until there is enough pushback from his own political party and republican voters standing up against the tyranny of historic unlawfulness.
Laurel says
Then, chickenshit Hegseth threw the Admiral under the bus to save his own butt! Where did all that manly man talk go?
Sherry says
@ Laurel. . . I couldn’t agree with you more! I’m thinking Hernandez and others paid trump millions for those pardons. There needs to be investigations. . . but, Maga Republicans will not allow those investigations to happen.
Laurel says
Oh, the investigations will probably happen, but be called “a witchhunt.”
Deborah Coffey says
Obviously, Donald Trump has no idea what “seditious behavior” is!!!!! He should be in prison for that very thing. Or, is this one of his sicknesses…projection?
Tony Mack says
Absolutely true. Besides Trump spells it “seedishus”…
Lee says
Right on Tony..
BillC says
He also pronounces millions and billions as me-yuns and be-yuns. His little fish mouth makes words with “l’s” hard to pronounce.
Sherry says
Right On Deborah!
PaulT says
A few Republicans have stood by Mark Kelley but jf the GOP controlled Congress had accept it’s responsibilities and stood up to Trump none of this would have happened. .
How can the Congressional majority stand behind Trump’s puported ‘Caribbean drug war’ yet remain silent when he pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandex, the ex president of Honduras who was convicted in the US of long term involvement in a massive cocaine smuggling operation.
The inconsistency is stunning and stinks of corruption.
Ray W. says
On September 10, 1939, one week after Great Britain declared war on Germany for its invasion of Poland, the government’s War Cabinet met to discuss “the observance of the rules of war.” Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, did not attend the meeting.
Later that day, Churchill wrote to his Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, setting out his own position that the government should not authorize the initiative in bombing except in the immediate area of French military operations, “where we must of course help”.
Churchill added:
“It is to our interest that the war should be conducted in accordance to more humane conceptions of war, and that we should follow and not precede the Germans in the process, no doubt inevitable, of deepening severity and violence. Every day that passes gives more shelter to the population of London and the big cities, and in a fortnight or so there will be far more comparatively safe refuges than now.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W. says
On October 15, 1939, Winston Churchill, in his Cabinet Role as First Lord of the Admiralty minuted First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound about the WWI murder of German U-boat survivors by the crew of the Baralong, a freighter converted to an armed merchant cruiser:
“Mercy should always be show to men in the water, and once a man is received on board he is a prisoner of war and can be dealt with by the tribunals according to law and custom. However, this is a corrective, that no risks need be run in picking up men from the water in cases where the rescuing ship may still be exposed to the danger of renewed U-boat attack. A brave officer will always be humane.”
Make of this what you will.