DOJ sought grand jury indictment of six lawmakers over anti-illegal-orders video; grand jury rejected the case

On February 10, 2026, attorneys from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia — led by Trump appointee Jeanine Pirro — presented a criminal case to a federal grand jury seeking to indict six Democratic members of Congress: Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. The case concerned a video the six lawmakers, all military or intelligence veterans, posted to social media in November 2025 reminding U.S. military and intelligence personnel of their obligation under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to refuse manifestly unlawful orders. The grand jury declined to find probable cause on any charge, an outcome federal prosecutors fail to secure only a handful of times per year nationwide.

The two government attorneys who presented the case — a former longtime House Republican staffer and a former local prosecutor who had worked with Pirro decades earlier — were political appointees rather than career Justice Department prosecutors, a departure from normal charging practice. The attempt followed President Trump's public accusations, made when the video was posted, that the lawmakers had engaged in "seditious behavior, punishable by death," and came roughly two months after the FBI's counterterrorism division sought interviews with the same six lawmakers over the same video. Legal experts noted that prosecuting members of Congress for the political speech at issue raised serious First Amendment concerns, compounded by the Constitution's speech-or-debate clause, which shields lawmakers from prosecution for acts taken within the legislative sphere.

Updates

2026-02-24 — Pirro's office dropped the indictment effort [6]

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office decided not to continue pursuing charges against the six lawmakers, ending the prosecution attempt roughly two weeks after the grand jury declined to indict.

2026-03-04 — D.C. judge ordered notice of future grand jury rejections in DOJ cases [5]

Following the failed indictment, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered that the duty magistrate judge be notified under seal whenever a federal grand jury declines to concur in a government-sought indictment, a policy he said would remain in place for 120 days but could become permanent. Boasberg, who separately blocked Pirro-issued subpoenas to the Federal Reserve and its chairman in the same order, wrote that the notification requirement was "in furtherance of the interests of consistency and transparency."