WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Donald Trump has publicly pushed.
In letters first obtained by The Associated Press, Slotkin’s lawyer informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would not agree to a voluntary interview about the video. Slotkin's legal team also requested that Pirro preserve all documents related to the matter for “anticipated litigation.”
Slotkin’s lawyer separately wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi, declining to sit for an FBI interview about the video and urging her to immediately terminate any inquiry.
The refusal marks a potential turning point in the standoff, shifting the burden onto the Justice Department to decide whether it will escalate an investigation into sitting members of Congress or retreat from an inquiry now being openly challenged.
“I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said in an interview Wednesday. “And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”
Last November, Slotkin joined five other Democratic lawmakers — all of whom previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies — in posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.
The lawmakers said Trump's Republican administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens” and called on troops to “stand up for our laws.”
The video sparked a firestorm in Republican circles and soon drew the attention of Trump, who accused the lawmakers of sedition and said their actions were “punishable by death.”
The Pentagon later announced it had opened an investigation into Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who appeared in the video. The FBI then contacted the lawmakers seeking interviews, signaling a broader Justice Department inquiry.
Slotkin said multiple legal advisers initially urged caution.
“Maybe if you keep quiet, this will all go away over Christmas,” Slotkin said she was told.
But in January, the matter flared again, with the lawmakers saying they were contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.
Meanwhile, security threats mounted. Slotkin said her farm in Michigan received a bomb threat, her brother was assigned a police detail due to threats and her parents were swatted in the middle of the night.
Her father, who died in January after a long battle with cancer, “could barely walk and he’s dealing with the cops in his home,” she said.
Slotkin said a “switch went off” in her and she became angry: “And I said, ‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back.’”
The requests from the FBI and the Justice Department have been voluntary. Slotkin said that her legal team had communicated with prosecutors but that officials “keep asking for a personal interview.”
Slotkin’s lawyer, Preet Bharara, in the letter to Pirro declined the interview request and asked that she “immediately terminate any open investigation and cease any further inquiry concerning the video.” In the other letter, Bharara urged Bondi to use her authority to direct Pirro to close the inquiry.
Bharara wrote that Slotkin’s constitutional rights had been infringed and said litigation is being considered.
“All options are most definitely on the table,” Slotkin said. Asked whether she would comply with a subpoena, she paused before responding: “I’d take a hard look at it.”
Bharara, who's representing Slotkin in the case, is a former U.S. attorney in New York who was fired by Trump in 2017 during his first administration. He's also representing Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California in a separate case involving the Justice Department.
Kelly has similarly pushed back, suing the Pentagon last month over attempts to punish him for the video. On Tuesday, a federal judge said that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of Kelly as he weighed whether to intervene.
Slotkin said she's in contact with the other lawmakers who appeared in the video, but she wouldn't say what their plans were in the investigations.
Trump has frequently and consistently targeted his political opponents. In some cases, those attacks have had the unintended consequence of elevating their national standing.
In Kelly’s case, he raised more than $12.5 million in the final months of 2025 following the “illegal orders” video controversy, according to campaign finance filings.
Slotkin, like Kelly, has been mentioned among Democrats who could emerge as presidential contenders in 2028.
She previously represented one of the nation’s most competitive House districts before winning a Senate seat in Michigan in 2024, even as Trump carried the state.
Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to Congress last year and has since urged her party to confront him more aggressively, saying Democrats had lost their “alpha energy” and calling on them to “go nuclear” against Trump’s redistricting push.
“If I’m encouraging other people to take risk, how can I not then accept risk myself?" Slotkin said. “I think you’ve got to show people that we’re not going to lay down and take it.”
FILE - Former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
Democrats are threatening to block funding for the Homeland Security Department when it expires in two weeks unless there are “dramatic changes” and “real accountability” for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies who are carrying out President Donald Trump’s campaign of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.
It’s unclear if the president or enough congressional Republicans will agree to any of the Democrats’ larger demands that the officers unmask and identify themselves, obtain judicial warrants in certain cases and work with local authorities, among other asks. Republicans have already pushed back.
House GOP lawmakers are demanding that some of their own priorities be added to the Homeland Security spending bill, including legislation that would require proof of citizenship before Americans register to vote and restrictions on sanctuary cities. There’s no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
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Recalling a past trip to Iraq during his first term, Trump mused that he doesn’t like to sleep during long flights.
“I don’t sleep on planes. I don’t like sleeping on planes,” he told the audience at the National Prayer Breakfast.
“You know,” the president added “I like looking out the window watching for missiles and enemies, actually.”
Trump also frequently spends long flights overseas talking to advisers, posting things on his social media site and frequently heading to the press cabin to answer reporters’ questions.
He was talking about Republican U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who sometimes votes against the party.
Early in his remarks Thursday, Trump turned to the topic of legislation and said Republicans will typically rally together after some finagling — all of them, he said, except for Massie.
“No matter what we do, this moron, no matter what it is,” Trump griped.
“We’ll get a 100% vote except for this guy named Thomas Massie. There’s something wrong with him.”
Massie, a libertarian-leaning representative, has drawn the president’s ire for saying he lacked the authority to attack Iran’s nuclear sites without congressional approval, voting against Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts bill and fighting for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, the president said his past suggestions that he might night make it to heaven were actually in jest.
He blamed the media for writing his exact past words about the afterlife, suggesting his sense of irony didn’t come through in the reporting.
It’s a tactic Trump often uses when comments cause a stir he wasn’t expecting, trying to soften them without hinting that he might have misspoken.
“I was just having fun,” Trump said of his past comments.
He added of heaven: “I really think I probably should make it. I mean, I’m not a perfect candidate, but I did a hell of a lot of good for perfect people.”
The Kremlin said Thursday it regretted the expiration of the last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States that left no caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.
Arms control experts say the termination of the New START Treaty could set the stage for an unconstrained nuclear arms race.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared his readiness to stick to the treaty’s limits for another year if Washington followed suit, but President Trump has been noncommittal about extending it. He’s indicated he wants China to be a part of a new pact — something Beijing has rebuffed.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Trump has made clear “in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it’s impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile.”
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Vice President JD Vance arrived in Milan with his family Thursday, telling U.S. athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games that the competition “is one of the few things that unites the entire country.”
It’s the first stop for Vance on a trip combining diplomacy and sports. He’s leading President Donald Trump’s delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and later stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a show of support for a peace agreement brokered by the White House last year.
Vance, who plans to watch the U.S. women’s hockey team take on the Czech Republic in a preliminary game Thursday, told athletes the trip is a highlight of his time in office. “The whole country — Democrat, Republican, independent — we’re all rooting for you and we’re cheering for you,” Vance said.
The weeklong trip may be one of only a few international trips Vance makes this year. Trump and his Cabinet members are taking a tighter focus on domestic issues — and domestic travel — heading into the November midterm elections, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said last month.
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The U.S. and Russia have agreed to reestablish high-level military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior Russian and American military officials in Abu Dhabi, the United States European Command said in a statement.
The agreement was reached following meetings in Abu Dhabi between Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, Commander of U.S. European Command -- also NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe -- and senior Russian and Ukrainian military officials, the statement said.
Grynkewich was in the capital of the United Arab Emirates for talks between American, Russian and Ukrainian officials on ending the war in Ukraine. The channel “will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace,” the statement said
High-level military communication was suspended in 2021, just before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Washington, before signing a spending bill that will end a partial shutdown of the federal government. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a spending bill that ends a partial shutdown of the federal government in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
