National Guard deployed in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of the California National Guard.
President Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior after they released a video urging US service members to refuse illegal orders. The lawmakers, all veterans or former intelligence officials, told troops that the greatest threats to the Constitution were coming from inside the United States and claimed soldiers would soon face unlawful commands. Trump responded on Truth Social, calling them traitors who should be arrested and saying their actions were “punishable by death.”
He also amplified another user’s post calling for them to be hanged. The White House later clarified that Trump was not calling for their execution, but rather pointing out the gravity of encouraging troops to break the chain of command. The lawmakers insisted they would not be intimidated.
The legal dispute centers on whether the lawmakers crossed into unlawful interference with the military. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, troops must disobey clearly illegal orders, but they cannot make their own constitutional determinations. That authority belongs to the courts, military legal officers, and the chain of command.
The only time service members should refuse a command is when the unlawfulness is obvious, such as orders to commit war crimes. None of Trump’s orders meet that threshold and no such orders have been issued.
The likely issue is domestic deployment of the military to support ICE and to aid policing in Democrat-led cities where local authorities refuse to tackle crime. Trump has clear legal authority under the Insurrection Act to deploy troops inside the country. The National Guard can support law enforcement under state control, and federal troops can operate under specific statutes, including border security and drug interdiction.
Urging troops to preemptively disobey orders that have not been given forces them to make speculative constitutional judgments. It turns political disagreement into supposed illegality. This is not how civil-military relations function in the United States.
Trump’s phrasing was blunt, but he was invoking the seriousness of the conduct, not personally threatening to kill anyone. When people say an offense is “punishable by death,” they are describing the maximum historical penalty, not issuing a personal threat. Modern sedition statutes carry prison terms, not capital punishment, but the point remains that undermining military discipline is a severe federal offense.
The most relevant statute is 18 U.S.C. § 2387, which criminalizes advising, counseling, or urging any service member to refuse duty or show disloyalty. The penalty is up to ten years in prison. Seditious conspiracy under § 2384 carries up to twenty years. Treason under § 2381 does carry a possible death sentence, but that requires levying war or giving aid and comfort to the nation’s enemies. Trump appeared to be conflating these statutes, but his underlying point is sound: telling troops to ignore commands could constitute unlawful interference with military authority.
Despite this, Democratic leaders portrayed Trump’s comments as a threat to kill members of Congress and requested police protection. Capitol Police, however, cannot shield lawmakers from legal scrutiny if they violated federal statutes. Protection is appropriate only if there are credible threats of violence from third parties, not from a president making a legal argument about the seriousness of their conduct. Their response reframes a legal accusation as a personal threat, which serves political purposes but does not address whether their actions were lawful.
If these lawmakers urged insubordination, the proper process is straightforward: a Department of Justice investigation, a grand jury indictment if warranted, arrest, trial, and sentencing. The Speech or Debate Clause does not protect members of Congress for public videos or political messaging outside official duties. Members of Congress have been arrested and prosecuted many times in American history.
The lawmakers defend their video by claiming their oath requires them to warn troops not to follow unlawful orders. But repeating the phrase “troops never have to follow illegal orders” does not justify encouraging preemptive disobedience in the absence of any unlawful commands. Their rallying line, “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” turns a legal question into a political slogan.
Trump’s core argument is simple: encouraging military personnel to reject commands on speculative political grounds is not protected speech. It risks violating federal law designed to preserve discipline in the armed forces. The media’s insistence on framing Trump’s statement as a death threat obscures the real issue, which is whether six elected officials crossed the line into unlawful interference with the military chain of command.
The post Trump Is Right: Democrats’ Call for Troops to Defy Orders Crosses Into Possible Sedition appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.