Ada Nestor: Chrissy Houlahan knows better

Chrissy Houlahan did not stumble into this.

She is not some freshman backbencher who misspoke into an iPhone. She is an Air Force veteran, the Democratic congresswoman for Pennsylvania’s 6th District, and the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, which oversees policy that touches every uniform and family in the force. She also sits on the House Intelligence Committee. She knows exactly how the chain of command works and how sensitive civil-military lines are supposed to be.

Which is why her decision to appear in a scripted political video telling enlisted service members to “refuse illegal orders” is not just reckless. It is, in any plain language, seditious behavior.

The video: “You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders.”

In mid November, six Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds posted a highly produced video on social media, branded with the naval phrase “Don’t Give Up The Ship.”

The cast:

• Sen Elissa Slotkin
• Sen Mark Kelly
• Rep Jason Crow
• Rep Maggie Goodlander
• Rep Chris Deluzio
• Rep Chrissy Houlahan

Each of them looks into the camera and walks through the same script. They say the real “threats to our Constitution” are coming from inside the country, not abroad, and accuse the Trump administration of “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.”

Then comes the key line, repeated in slightly different forms:

“You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

The video does not identify a specific “illegal order.” It does not name an operation, an executive order, a theater of war, or a legal opinion. It simply drops that message into the bloodstream, timed to a political environment already white hot over Trump’s use of National Guard and federal forces under his “crime emergency” order and his narcoterrorism actions abroad.

Trump responded the way Trump always does: directly. On Truth Social he called their actions “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR” and said their behavior was “punishable by DEATH,” demanding they be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.”

The usual media split followed. Left-leaning outlets framed the video as a sober reminder of the duty to disobey unlawful orders. Conservative outlets called it a dangerous political shot at the Commander in Chief that invites insubordination.

What almost no one is saying out loud is this:

Chrissy Houlahan knows better than to do this on camera for partisan gain. She did it anyway.

Yes, troops must refuse illegal orders. That is not the issue.

Here is the part the press hides behind.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice and long standing doctrine, service members must obey lawful orders and are expected to disobey clearly unlawful orders, especially those that violate the Constitution, the law of war or basic human rights. Articles, manuals and JAG guidance are very clear on this.

This is taught in training. It is hammered home in leadership courses. It is not some secret wisdom that only a handful of Democrat veterans finally decided to share on X in 2025.

So when Houlahan and company pretend they are simply “informing” the troops of their rights, that is nonsense. Every serious officer knows you do not run to social media to “educate” the ranks about disobeying orders. You work through doctrine, legal channels, inspector general complaints, internal memos, hearings, and legislation.

This was not military education. This was political signaling, aimed over the heads of the chain of command and straight at the junior ranks.

Where this crosses the line

The video does three things at once.

First, it tells service members that the main “threat to the Constitution” is coming from “right here at home,” while the sitting Commander in Chief is Trump, who they have been branding as an authoritarian for years.

Second, it asserts that “this administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.” That is a loaded charge. There is no specific operation cited, no case, no legal brief, just a sweeping moral indictment.

Third, it then pairs that indictment with a call to the ranks: you can refuse orders, you must refuse orders, do not carry out orders that violate the law or Constitution.

This is not a sober law of war class at the Judge Advocate General School. It is a political advertisement.

Now layer in who is talking.

These are not random activists. These are sitting members of Congress who help write the laws that govern the armed forces. They sit on Armed Services and Intelligence. They know how seriously the enlisted ranks take messages from senior leaders who “have been there.”

When that group, with that authority, stands on camera and strongly hints that illegal orders might be coming from the White House and tells troops to prepare to say no, they are doing something very specific.

They are priming the military to view the elected civilian leadership as an active domestic threat and to treat future presidential orders with political suspicion rather than disciplined obedience that runs through proper legal channels.

That is how you start to hollow out the chain of command from the inside.

What the law calls “sedition” and where this fits

Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud.

Federal law already covers exactly what Chrissy Houlahan and her coalition did. It sits in black-and-white in 18 U.S.C. § 2387, titled Activities Affecting Armed Forces Generally. It doesn’t require a conspiracy. It doesn’t require violence. It doesn’t require a militia stockpiling rifles in a barn.

It criminalizes “knowingly advising, counseling, or urging any member of the U.S. military to disobey, desert, or refuse lawful orders,” when done with intent to interfere with military operations or loyalty.

The penalty isn’t a slap on the wrist.

It is up to 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

So let’s stop pretending this is abstract.

If a civilian did what Houlahan did, they would already be sitting in an interrogation room.

If a service member did it, they’d be hauled off under the UCMJ before the video finished uploading.

If a Republican member of Congress did it, MSNBC would be running a four-day special titled “Coup Attempt.”

The law is clear.

The conduct is clear.

The consequences are clear.

They should be arrested. They should be prosecuted. They should be tried in open court. And if convicted, they should serve the 20-year sentence and pay the quarter-million-dollar fine the statute mandates.

That is not vengeance.

That is the law as written.

And if Congress expects the enlisted ranks to follow lawful orders without hesitation, then the people who told those same troops to defy the chain of command should face the exact same accountability.

Anything less is a two-tiered system for the people holding the rifles and the people holding the microphones.

Houlahan’s unique culpability

Now zoom back to Chrissy Houlahan.

She is not just “one of six.” She is the congresswoman whose district covers most of Chester County and part of Berks. She was just elevated to the top Democratic slot on the Armed Services personnel subcommittee that oversees everything from pay and healthcare to readiness and morale. She is also on Intel. Her entire political brand is “responsible veteran, steady hand, service first.”

So when she lends that credibility to a partisan video aimed directly at the troops, she is cashing in the moral capital of every veteran who ever looked a young private in the eye and said “you follow lawful orders, and you work it through the system.”

She is not some clueless civilian activist. She knows the pressure cooker inside the ranks. She knows how fast rumor, fear and “what if” chatter can spin up around the words “illegal order.”

She did it anyway.

If a Republican member of Congress produced a video in 2019 warning troops that “the real threat is at home” and hinting that they should be ready to refuse “illegal orders” from the Biden White House, entire newsrooms would have yelled “sedition” into camera lenses until the lights blew.

We all know that.

The only reason we are having a polite debate about this instead of a wall to wall meltdown is because the target is Trump, and the people in the video are wearing the right partisan label.

What this does to civil-military trust

There is a real cost here, and it is bigger than Chrissy Houlahan’s next race.

The American military depends on a simple, brutal clarity: civilians give lawful orders, the military carries them out. If an order is clearly unlawful, there are processes to challenge it and refuse it. That line has to be bright, or you no longer have a professional military. You have rival factions with guns.

By turning that doctrine into a political campaign spot, these Democrats blurred the line on purpose. They encouraged troops and intel officers to view one administration as presumptively suspect, and to view themselves as the last line of defense against their own government, with a social media video as the trigger.

That is the mindset of a country that is already half broken.

If you want to protect the Constitution, you do not train the enlisted ranks to look at the Commander in Chief as a potential enemy every time CNN runs a chyron. You strengthen the legal guardrails, you challenge bad decisions in court, you write bills, you hold hearings, you blow the whistle through proper channels.

What you do not do is what Chrissy Houlahan just did.

Is it legally sedition? Maybe not. Is it morally seditious? Absolutely.

Lawyers can spend the next year arguing over whether this meets the elements of 18 U S C 2384 or belongs under a different section that covers “activities affecting armed forces.” Some will say it is protected speech. Others will say it is a grey zone.

Fine. That is their job.

My job is to call out what is right in front of us.

A sitting member of Congress from Chester County, with deep influence over the military, used her uniform and her office to send a political message into the ranks that undermines trust in civilian authority and primes troops to view orders through a partisan filter.

You can dress that up all you want. At the end of the day, that is seditious behavior in every way that actually matters for a republic.

And the people pretending it is just a “civic reminder” know better.

Including Chrissy Houlahan.

Ada Nestor is the co-host of the The Conservative Voice radio show in Philadelphia and writes Reflections from the Edge on substack. You can reach her on X at @AdaNestorWC.