Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) has refused to voluntarily participate in a Justice Department investigation over a video she and five other Democratic members of Congress recorded late last year that urged U.S. troops to resist unlawful orders from the Trump administration.
In a Thursday letter to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro reviewed by The Washington Post and first reported by the Associated Press, Preet Bharara, an attorney for Slotkin, defended the senator’s decision and said the message that Slotkin and the other Democrats shared was “uncontroversial and incontrovertible.”
“As a former member of the intelligence community, and current member of Congress with oversight of those communities, Senator Slotkin felt duty-bound to ensure those individuals understood that the law not only allows, but requires them, to refuse an illegal order,” Bharara wrote.
On Thursday, Slotkin said in a video on X that many lawyers told her “just be quiet, keep my head down, and, hopefully, this will all just go away.
“But that’s exactly what the Trump administration and Jeanine Pirro want — they’re purposely using physical and legal intimidation to get me to shut up. More importantly, they’re using that intimidation to deter others from speaking out against the administration. The intimidation is the point, and I’m not going to go along with that.”
In the 90-second November video, Slotkin and the other Democratic lawmakers — including Sen. Mark Kelly (Arizona), who faces a Pentagon inquiry over his involvement in the clip — urge troops to resist unlawful military orders from the Trump administration, amid its controversial uses of the military.
President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH.”
In January, Slotkin and the other Democrats featured in the video said they were under federal investigation over their actions. Slotkin said at the time that both Pirro and the FBI had asked to interview her in the matter.
“I’m not going to legitimize their actions,” Slotkin said Thursday in her video statement on X. “The video we made was public. I’ve done a ton of public talking about it since then, including now, and our Constitution is crystal clear on the issue of freedom of speech.”
In his letter to Pirro on Thursday, Bharara said Slotkin would consider suing Pirro’s office “for malicious prosecution and infringement of her Constitutional rights” if the investigation continued. He also demanded that the Justice Department preserve any and all information, documents and communications related to the investigation in case that lawsuit went forward.
In a separate letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Bharara said Slotkin would not sit for an interview requested by the FBI. He urged Bondi to end any investigation into the video and reiterated that the senator would consider litigation if the inquiry continued.
Bharara told Bondi that there is “nothing for prosecutors to investigate — there is no crime here.”
Slotkin’s legal team, Bharara added, met with two members from Pirro’s office. He said the officers “could not articulate any theory of possible criminal liability or identify any statute they were relying on or that could have been violated.”
Spokespeople for the White House, the Justice Department and Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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