OPINION:
Democrats stepped on a land mine when they posted an ill-advised video stunt encouraging military personnel and “intelligence community professionals” to refuse the president’s orders.
Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona joined Reps. Jason Crow, Christopher Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan in giving the impression that they would “have the back” of soldiers who enlisted in the resistance.
“The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution,” Ms. Slotkin explained.
On the talk show circuit Sunday, video participants backtracked with Jesuitical insistence that they had merely recommended a refusal of “illegal” directives from the commander in chief. Such excuses don’t pass muster coming from a crowd that consistently labels every second-term agenda item the stuff of a fascist dictator.
Donald Trump’s response was harsh. “The traitors that told the military to disobey my orders should be in jail right now, not roaming the fake news networks trying to explain that what they said was ok. It wasn’t, and never will be,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
He cited a federal statute prescribing prison time for anyone who “urges, or in any manner causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty by any member of the military.”
Members of Congress would have First Amendment and speech and debate clause defenses to such a charge, but Mr. Trump can be forgiven for a bit of hyperbole. These individuals have schemed in the shadows to sabotage his entire political career.
Democrats want to repeat their 2019 success. Two Army officers detailed to the National Security Council, Alexander and Eugene Vindman, defied the president after they listened to the “perfect phone call” between Mr. Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
The matter made its way to the House Judiciary Committee, where Ms. Goodlander, at the time a staff counsel, helped arrange the first impeachment. She was rewarded this year with a congressional seat from New Hampshire, and Eugene Vindman was gifted one from Virginia.
It’s worth pointing out that Mr. Vindman’s tune changes depending on who’s in the Oval Office. He called for jailing soldiers who dared question a decree emanating from President Biden’s desk.
“Proud of the prosecution team at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Secured a first in the nation conviction at court-martial of a lieutenant who failed to obey lawful orders re COVID mitigation measures. Guilty on all 3 counts,” he said on X in 2022.
Ms. Goodlander is now playing the victim card. “It is sad, telling, and downright dangerous that simply stating what our law says caused the president of the United States, our commander in chief, to threaten violence against me today,” she said in a follow-up video on X.
Mr. Trump suggested only that she and the others should be “arrested and put on trial.” It’s not surprising that she would mislead about that because her husband, Jake Sullivan, was the principal architect of Hillary Clinton’s plot to falsely accuse Mr. Trump of being a Russian agent in 2016.
Mr. Sullivan created the whopper about a “line of communication” between the Trump Organization and the Kremlin. It soon evolved into a full-blown effort of intelligence community professionals to take down an elected president and prevent his reelection.
This is just the first time that the drive to recruit spies and soldiers into the resistance has happened in the open. Unless something is done about it, they won’t stop.
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