Half a dozen members of Congress who beforehand served within the army or intelligence neighborhood are urging service members and intelligence officers to disobey illegal orders that is perhaps issued by President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a video posted on X Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Rep. Chris Deluzio and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan mentioned the “threats to our Constitution” are coming “from right here at home,” and repeatedly urged the army and intelligence neighborhood to “refuse illegal orders.”
“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law, or our Constitution,” they mentioned. “Know that we have your back… don’t give up the ship.”
In the video, the lawmakers don’t specify which orders service members have obtained, or may obtain, that may very well be illegal.
Service members are required to observe solely lawful orders in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Following an order which may violate the legislation might open service members up to prosecution, as authorized precedent holds that receiving an order alone isn’t a protection, colloquially often called the “Nuremberg defense” because it was deployed by senior members of Adolph Hitler’s management group throughout authorized proceedings after World War II.
The video comes as US army officers, together with the commander of US Southern Command, and US allies, including the UK, have questioned the legality of a sequence of army strikes focusing on suspected drug traffickers within the Caribbean and jap Pacific. The assaults have killed not less than 83 folks since September. The Trump administration can be combating a number of court cases over its use of troops in American cities, elevating authorized questions on how the army can be utilized on US soil.
Republican lawmakers shortly pushed again on the video. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn informed Fox on Wednesday, “It is inconceivable that you would have elected officials that are saying to uniformed members of the military who have taken an oath that they would defy the orders that they have been given to execute their mission.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham informed Fox on Tuesday that “the senators and congressmen who made a video suggesting our men and women in the military do not have to follow unlawful orders have yet to show us an example. They owe it to our men and women in the military to be specific about orders issued by President Trump or those under his command that they believe to be unlawful.”
The Defense Department is counting on a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion to legally justify the US army’s strikes in opposition to boats allegedly carrying medicine. The OLC opinion features a listing of 24 totally different cartels and legal organizations primarily based round Latin America it says the administration is permitted to goal, NCS has reported.
But lawmakers who’ve been briefed by the Pentagon in regards to the operation have mentioned that army officers have acknowledged not figuring out the person identities of these they’re focusing on earlier than killing them. Instead, the officers mentioned they want solely set up that these on board the vessels are affiliated with cartels. Lawyers contained in the Pentagon have raised authorized considerations in regards to the US army strikes, NCS has reported.
Military legal professionals have been conspicuously absent from latest congressional briefings on the operation, lawmakers have mentioned. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the highest uniformed legal professionals for the Army and Air Force earlier this 12 months, telling reporters afterwards that he considered them as potential “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.”
To date, key lawmakers have additionally not obtained a single briefing from members of the intelligence neighborhood on its function within the boat strikes —regardless of submitting a number of requests for data and the Trump administration publicly citing intelligence that these killed have been identified drug traffickers, in accordance to a supply acquainted with the matter.
Formal requests, together with not less than one despatched to Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have gone unanswered, the supply added, noting lawmakers have obtained briefings solely from officers on the State Department and Department of Defense to this point.