Jeanine Pirro's office shelves pursuit of Democrats over social video, sources say

Jeanine Pirro has decided to stop pursuing the case against six Democratic lawmakers over a social media video, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News. BREAKING NEWSFeb. 23, 2026, 11:25 PM UTCJustice DepartmentJustice DepartmentJeanine Pirro's office shelves pursuit of Democrats over social video, sources sayA federal grand jury in D.C. unanimously rejected the attempt to indict six lawmakers who told military and intelligence community members on social media not to obey unlawful orders.President Donald Trump looks on as Jeanine Pirro, then the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., speaks at her swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in May.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleBy Ryan J. ReillyListen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Jeanine Pirro's office has decided to stop pursuing the case against six Democratic lawmakers who urged members of the military and intelligence communities in a social media video not to comply with unlawful orders, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News.Roughly two weeks ago, as first reported by NBC News, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., unanimously rejected an attempt by Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to indict lawmakers over the video, illustrating that grand jurors didn’t think the government had passed even the low legal threshold of probable cause required to bring an indictment.While a potential case against the six lawmakers is now considered dead in Washington, that decision wouldn’t necessarily bar a federal prosecutor from trying to bring a case in a different federal court district, though there have been no public indications that will happen.Legal experts and Democrats have criticized the unprecedented attempt to use the immense powers of the Justice Department to punish six members of Congress as a purely political attack on protected free speech and a sign that the guardrails that existed during the first Trump administration have been eroding. Pirro’s office had tried to charge six Democratic lawmakers, all of whom have military or intelligence backgrounds: Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona and Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Jason Crow of Colorado and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. In a series of social media posts, President Donald Trump said the lawmakers were traitors who committed “SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.”Clockwise from top left: Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Rep. Chris Deluzio, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Maggie Goodlander and Rep. Jason Crow.via XWhile Trump suggested the lawmakers’ behavior was possibly punishable by death, a grand jury found no evidence of a crime. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, members of the military are obliged to obey only lawful orders and must refuse those that are manifestly illegal.The lawmakers said after the indictment attempt failed that they wouldn’t be intimidated by efforts to stifle free speech.“Whether or not Pirro succeeded is not the point,” Slotkin said. “It’s that President Trump continues to weaponize our justice system against his perceived enemies."Asked whether Pirro and Trump had spoken about the potential case against the lawmakers, a spokesman for Pirro declined to comment. A White House official said the administration doesn’t comment on potential conversations the president may or may not have had.Since the Watergate era, administrations of both parties have worked to varying extents to create a firewall between the Justice Department and the White House, allowing the president to broadly set his administration’s policy, but to steer clear of interference in prosecutorial decision-making or even communications that would create an appearance of impropriety.Former Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a 2021 memo that the Justice Department wouldn’t advise the White House on pending or contemplated criminal cases in order to “insulate” leaders from “inappropriate influences," unless it was "important for the performance of the president's duties." The question of possible political influence on criminal investigations has traditionally been a bipartisan issue. In 2016, when Bill Clinton boarded former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane while the Justice Department was investigating Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails, the brief airport tarmac encounter sparked outrage from some Republicans, with Trump himself calling it “so terrible” and “so horrible” and deeming it one of the biggest stories of 2016.Over the past year, Trump publicly posted a message on social media pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi to act against a number of his political foes, and he congratulated FBI agents after they raided a Fulton County, Georgia, election center over the 2020 presidential election. FBI Director Kash Patel put Trump on speakerphone as he cracked open a beverage in the locker room Sunday after the American men’s hockey team won the gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, according to video posted on social media, though the two didn’t discus