Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., is seen in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said Thursday that she had refused to sit for a requested interview with the Department of Justice for its investigation over a video in which she and five other Democratic lawmakers urged U.S. troops not to follow illegal orders.
“I’m not going to be sitting down for this inquiry. I’m not going to legitimize their actions,” Slotkin said in a videotaped statement she posted on X.
Slotkin’s lawyer also sent letters to Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, informing them of her noncompliance, and asking Bondi to order Pirro to drop the probe.
The lawyer, Preet Bharara, urged Pirro to retain her records because of “anticipated litigation concerning potential violations of the Senator’s First Amendment rights and your office’s vindictive and retaliatory investigation.”
Bharara, in a letter to Pirro, said that the message of the Nov. 18 video featuring Slotkin and the other Democrats “is uncontroversial and incontrovertible.”
“It is therefore perplexing that the Department of Justice has begun an inquiry into the matter. For the reasons set forth below, our client will not submit to an interview in these circumstances and on this record,” wrote Bharara, who previously served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Pirro’s office declined to comment on the letters. CNBC has requested comment from the DOJ.
Slotkin, in her video on X on Thursday, said that the Trump administration’s aggressive reaction to her original video to U.S. troops resulted in a torrent of threats against her, her family, and her staff.
“To be honest, many lawyers told me to just be quiet, keep my head down, and hopefully this will all just go away,” she said.
“But that’s exactly what the Trump administration and Jeanine Pirro want.”
“They are purposely using physical and legal intimidation to get me to shut up. But more importantly, they’re using that intimidation to deter others from speaking out against their administration,” Slotkin said.
“The intimidation is the point, and I’m not gonna go along with that,” she said.
In the Nov. 18 video, titled “Don’t give up the ship,” the former CIA officer Slotkin and the other lawmakers deliver a straight-to-camera address to members of the U.S. military.
“Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” Slotkin said on that video.
The others in the video were Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former U.S. Navy captain and NASA astronaut, and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, both of Pennsylvania.
The video was published as the U.S. military carried out a succession of airstrikes in the Caribbean targeting boats purported to be smuggling drugs.
The boat attacks — whose legality has been questioned — have resulted in at least 126 deaths since early September, according to The New York Times.
President Donald Trump raged against the video, accusing the Democrats who appeared on it of sedition and treason, while calling for their arrest.
“Their words cannot be allowed to stand — We won’t have a Country anymore!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Nov. 20. “An example MUST BE SET.”
In a subsequent post, he wrote: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Days later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed Trump, calling the video “despicable, reckless, and false” and labeling the Democrats the “Seditious Six.”
The Pentagon initially said it was reviewing “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, and then later moved to cut his military retirement pay in retaliation for the video.
The lawmakers in late November said that the FBI sought to interview them.
Kelly filed a federal civil lawsuit against Hegseth and the Pentagon on Jan. 12 over his punishment for the video.
On the same day, Slotkin told the Times that Pirro’s office sent the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms a request to interview either her or her private counsel.
In a court hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon expressed skepticism about the Pentagon’s attempt to censure Kelly over his involvement in the video.
