WASHINGTON, D.C. — This morning, Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin accused President Donald Trump and his allies of weaponizing the justice system to silence critics, saying a grand jury “refused” yesterday to indict them.
VIDEO: Watch the complete Kelly, Slotkin press conference here:
A Washington, D.C., federal grand jury on Tuesday declined to indict Senators Kelly, Slotkin and four other Democratic lawmakers in connection with a video that urged service members to refuse "illegal orders," according to multiple news reports.
Prosecutors had opened an investigation after the November video and sought indictments against the lawmakers — including Republican- and Trump-era scrutiny over whether the remarks crossed legal lines. In addition to Kelly and Slotkin, the lawmakers who participated included Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Rep. Chris Deluzio and Rep. Maggie Goodlander. Reports indicate prosecutors explored sedition- or conspiracy-related theories for some participants but the grand jury returned no charges.
“This is outrageous,” Kelly said at a packed press conference. “This is a story about how Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to break our system in order to silence anyone who lawfully speaks out against them. … This is the master alarm flashing for our democracy.” He added that the effort — carried out, he said, by a prosecutor who had received unanimous Republican support last year — was “straight from the authoritarian playbook.”
Slotkin framed the grand jurors — “20 anonymous Americans who we will never meet” — as the day’s heroes. “They told us more about the values of America than Jeanine Pirro or Pam Bondi or certainly this president,” she said. “Small business owners, a mailman, a teacher … the people on the ground who understand the values of this country are the ones currently upholding it.”
Both senators said they learned the grand-jury effort through media reports and not direct notification, and they described the alleged probe as retaliation for a short November video in which they — all with military or service backgrounds — restated military law requiring refusal of unlawful orders. Kelly repeatedly called the episode a warning shot to ordinary Americans: “They don’t care about everyday Americans. They don’t care about using the justice system to go after real criminals. They care about themselves, their own power and their own wealth.”
Kelly emphasized how rare it is for a grand jury to decline to indict when prosecutors press charges, citing a year with a large number of indictments in his own calculation: “In 2013, there were 165,000 indictments. There were five that were not successful. This process has a 99.997 percent success rate.” He said that made the grand jury’s decision — in his telling — a noteworthy rebuke of what he called a politically motivated effort.
Slotkin warned of chilling effects beyond the Capitol: “The intimidation was the point. To get other people beyond us to think twice about speaking out.” She urged fellow leaders to stop going quiet in the face of what she called “physical intimidation and legal intimidation,” and celebrated the grand jurors’ “small acts of bravery” as the kind of civic courage the nation needs.
Kelly did not mince words about Trump’s temperament. “Donald Trump has a pretty limited capacity to move on from things,” he said. “He doesn’t take bad news well, and he’s got quite the ego that I think it makes it difficult for him to move on.” Kelly warned the pair would “keep all of our legal options open,” and described recent letters asking investigators to preserve records and to confirm the matter is closed.
Both senators pointed to broader danger, saying the episode threatens the independence of the Department of Justice and long-standing First Amendment protections. “This didn’t happen in Russia or China,” Kelly said. “This happened less than a mile from this building in the United States of America yesterday.”
Asked about Republicans who have protested government overreach, Slotkin gave a blunt assessment: “Where are the free speech absolutist Republicans now who were so concerned about the weaponization of government? … The best moment for them to stand up would have been in November. The next best moment is right now.”
The senators said they neither sought this fight nor intend to be cowed. “Senator Slotkin and I, we did not ask for this. We’re just the first through the breach,” Kelly said. “But you’ll be damn sure that we are not going to back down.”
The Justice Department, U.S. Attorney’s office referenced by the senators, and representatives for those the senators named had not immediately responded to requests for comment. The senators signaled they may pursue civil remedies if the records and confirmations they sought are not forthcoming.
Last month in Tucson, a veterans group erected billboard in show of support for Sen. Mark Kelly. Click here to see the video of that update.
