On June 14, a man nursing political grievances murdered Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and shot and injured State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. On September 10, 2025, another man with a different set of grievances murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk at an event in Utah.
On November 20, fully aware of the nation’s polarization, and after having inflamed his followers to assault the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2001, over bogus claims of election fraud, Donald Trump accused six members of the U.S. Congress of “seditious behavior, punishable by death.” “Hang them,” Trump reposted.
Unsurprisingly, this resulted in death threats against U.S. Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), one of Trump’s targets. Later, Trump claimed that he wasn’t actually threatening the Democrats with death when he threatened the Democrats with death.
Unlike Captain Bone Spurs, five of the six Democrats targeted by Trump actively served in the military. Senator Mark Kelly as a Navy aviator flew combat missions during the Gulf War before joining NASA. Rep. Chris Deluzio served as a Navy officer. Rep. Maggie Goodlander served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve. Rep. Crow as an Army Ranger earned a Bronze Star for his combat missions in Iraq. The remaining person, Senator Elissa Slotkin, was a CIA analyst.
What was these Democrats’ great crime, their act of sedition, according to Trump? They pointed out the obvious: that members of the military should not follow illegal orders. This point is not remotely controversial among serious, intellectually honest people. For example, the Department of Defense’s 2023 Law of War Manual states, “The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
That is the point the Democrats in question made. They said: “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. … Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders. … You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”
This truth goes to the heart of America’s national values. Fundamental to our nation is the principle that people in the government and the military owe their primary loyalty to the Constitution, not to the president. We are a nation of laws, and no one, including the president, is above the law. If this principle is destroyed, then we no longer live in a Constitutional republic — we live in a dictatorship. No principled Republican would doubt this.
Unfortunately, some of today’s leading Republicans betray their party’s long-held principles. Heidi Ganahl, former member of the CU Board of Regents and 2022 Republican candidate for governor, claims in a November 28 article that Crow and the other Democrats are “playing with fire” by pointing out the obvious that members of the military are legally required to reject orders they know to be illegal. But, to Ganahl, the president saying that six members of Congress should be executed is apparently not “playing with fire.”
What’s the problem, according to Ganahl (who, incidentally, like me, never served in the military)? In their short video, the Democrats “never defined what those orders might be,” which introduces “vagueness.” This is not a serious criticism. Generally, instruction about illegal orders is a core part of military training. Any member of the military should be able to come up with a partial list of illegal orders, especially since soldiers are legally accountable for their actions.
That Ganahl is playing tribal political hack rather than serious analyst becomes obvious with CNN’s December 2 revelation that Trump’s Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth reminded a crowd in 2016 that — you guessed it — members of the military have a duty to reject illegal orders. Yet, as CNN points out, Hegseth also called the six Democrats “seditious” and “ordered a Pentagon investigation into one of them, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain.”
Here is what Hegseth said in 2016:
“There are some guys at Leavenworth who made really bad choices on the battlefield. And I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you’re doing something that is just completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that. That’s why the military said it won’t follow unlawful orders from their commander-in-chief. There’s a standard, there’s an ethos, there’s a belief that we are above what so many things that our enemies or others would do.”
Hegseth went on to say that some soldiers are improperly tagged with violations.
I’ll hold my breath waiting for Ganahl to publish her follow-up piece condemning Hegseth for saying essentially the same thing that Crow said.
The discussion about illegal orders has surprisingly direct relevance to current politics. On November 28, the Washington Post published an article, citing two unnamed officials, claiming that Hegseth ordered military members to “kill everybody” aboard a boat targeted by the military. According to the report, this led to a military team killing two men in the water. Hegseth subsequently said he “did not personally see survivors” on live video. Regardless, even if these killings do not constitute a war crime, they certainly rub uncomfortably close to one.
The entire series of boat attacks is dubious. CBS reported on December 2, “In total, the U.S. has struck more than 20 boats between early September and mid-November, killing more than 80 people. . . . U.S. officials have not provided specific evidence that the vessels were smuggling drugs or posed a threat to the U.S.”
As the lawyer Ilya Somin argues, even if the boats were smuggling drugs, that would not be grounds for the military to attack them. In my view, the military personnel involved, acting on orders from Trump and Hegseth, have committed mass murder, regardless of whether anyone ever is held responsible for war crimes. I expect Trump simply will pardon anyone in questionable legal standing, including himself.
Whatever you think of the boat strikes, and whatever additional details we learn about them, Jason Crow and his fellow Democrats obviously are correct, as Hegseth himself has conceded: Members of the military have a moral and legal responsibility not to follow illegal orders. And if we wish to continue living in a Constitutional republic rather than a dictatorship, that is a principle that we will champion.
