WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video urging members of the military to resist “illegal orders” confirmed Wednesday that they are under investigation from the Trump administration, a remarkable step by the Justice Department that comes after the president accused the lawmakers of sedition for their words.
The four House members and two senators all previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies. The FBI contacted them for interviews late last year, after their 90-second video was released, and now say they have been contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, a significant escalation in the investigation.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst, first revealed the outreach from prosecutors in an interview with The New York Times. On Wednesday she posted a video on her X account saying the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the chief federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital, reached out last week asking to interview her.
“This is the president’s playbook. Truth doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. And anyone who disagrees with him becomes an enemy,” Slotkin said. “And he then weaponizes the federal government against them. It’s legal intimidation and physical intimidation meant to get you to shut up.”
Pirro’s office said it would neither confirm nor deny whether an investigation is taking place.
Democratic Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire also confirmed Wednesday that they have been contacted by Pirro's office.
“They would like to sit down with us,” Houlahan told reporters. "And to my knowledge, each one of us have received the same email and outreach.”
The House members remained defiant, with Crow saying the Trump administration "picked the wrong people.”
“It is downright dangerous that the Justice Department is targeting me for doing my job,” Goodlander said in a statement. “These threats will not deter, distract, intimidate, or silence me.”
The lawmakers attracted President Donald Trump's wrath with a video that he and his aides have labeled as “seditious” — an offense Trump said on his social media account was “punishable by death.”
It is not clear what laws could have been violated in the video message. In it, the lawmakers tell troops to follow established military protocols by not following commands that violate the law. They said the administration “is pitting our uniformed military against American citizens” and they called for service members to “stand up for our laws.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday that “these members of Congress did not violate the law” and that Democrats “stand firmly behind them.”
The Pentagon swiftly went after Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former Navy pilot who represents Arizona, for his participation in the video.
In November, the Pentagon opened an investigation into him, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has censured Kelly for participating. Hegseth is attempting to retroactively demote Kelly from his retired rank of captain.
The senator is suing Hegseth to block those proceedings, calling them an unconstitutional act of retribution.
“The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech,” his lawsuit says.
Associated Press reporters Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Michael Casey in Boston and Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
This story has been corrected to reflect that Slotkin gave the Democratic response to Trump's congressional address in 2025, not 2024.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., exits the Senate chamber after speaking out against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's efforts to censure him over his participation in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is headed toward a vote Wednesday on a war powers resolution that would put a check on President Donald Trump's ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela, but the president was putting intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure.
Trump has lashed out at five GOP senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week, raising doubts that the measure will ultimately pass. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president's expanding foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats are forcing the vote after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.
“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame," Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.”
Trump's latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president's fury underscored how the war powers vote has taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.
The legislation, even if passed by the Senate, has virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad.
Republican Senate leaders are trying to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business. On Wednesday evening, they were moving to dismiss the measure under the argument that it is irrelevant to the current situation in Venezuela. That procedure was subject to a vote.
In a floor speech Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., vented his frustration as he questioned whether this war powers resolution should be prioritized under the chamber’s rules.
“We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” he said. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.
"If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate," he said in a floor speech.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, has indicated he may change his position.
Hawley said that Trump's message during a phone call last week was that the legislation “really ties my hands." The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was “really positive.”
Hawley said that Rubio told him Monday "point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.” The senator said he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.
“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.
Hawley's position left the vote margin for the resolution, which advanced 52-47 last week, razor thin.
However, Collins told reporters Wednesday she will still support the resolution. Murkowski and Paul have also indicated they won't switch.
That left Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, with the crucial vote. He declined repeatedly to discuss his position but said he was “giving it some thought.”
Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the ability to declare war. But U.S. presidents have long stretched their powers to use the might of the U.S. military around the globe.
Ohio State University professor Peter Mansoor, a military historian and retired U.S. Army colonel with multiple combat tours, said that trend since World War II allows Congress to shirk responsibility for war and put all the risk on the president.
In the post-Vietnam War era, lawmakers tried to take back some of their authority over wartime powers with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It allows lawmakers to hold votes on resolutions to restrict a president from using military force in specific conflicts without congressional approval.
“Politicians tend to like to evade responsibility for anything -- but then this gets you into forever wars,” Mansoor said.
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.
In a classified briefing Tuesday, senators reviewed the Trump administration's still undisclosed legal opinion for using the military for the operation. It was described as a lengthy document.
But lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump's recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “ help is on its way.”
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's recent aggression amounted to a “dangerous drift towards endless war.”
More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.
Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks with reporters outside the Senate chamber during a vote at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks with reporters at the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
