Trump's efforts to silence critics derailed by roadblocks: report

Since returning to the White House almost 13 months ago, President Donald Trump and his allies have been pushing for federal prosecutions of critics and opponents — including former FBI Director James Comey, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Adviser John Bolton (who served in the first Trump Administration but is now an outspoken critic of the president).

Other Trump foes who have been targeted by Trump allies in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) include Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan). In a video posted online in late 2025, Kelly and Slotkin, along with four Democrats serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, urged members of the U.S. Armed Forces to defy Trump if he asks them to do anything that is blatantly illegal.

In an article published by the libertarian Reason on February 18, reporter Jacob Sullum emphasizes that Trump's efforts to use DOJ against his critics is running into legal obstacles — from federal grand juries to judges in the lower federal courts.

"In 2013, several Republican senators questioned President Barack Obama's use of drones to kill suspected terrorists," Sullum explains. "The lawmakers, who included Sens. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), Ted Cruz (R–Texas), Mike Lee (R–Utah), and Marco Rubio (R–Fla.), were especially troubled by the possibility that drones might be deployed against American citizens on U.S. soil, which, they argued, would be clearly unlawful in the absence of an imminent threat. How would Republicans have reacted if Obama, assisted by a Justice Department eager to do his bidding, threatened to arrest and jail those critics? That is how President Donald Trump has responded to Democratic legislators who worry about his potentially illegal use of military power."

Sullum adds, however, that Trump's efforts to use DOJ against Kelly, Slotkin and four other Democrats for their video are hitting "roadblocks."

"Trump called the legislators 'TRAITORS' who had engaged in 'SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR,'" the Reason journalist notes. "But nothing they did came close to meeting the elements of treason or seditious conspiracy…. In this case, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., declined to cooperate with Trump's vendetta. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the video was 'unquestionably protected' by the First Amendment."

Sullum adds, "Leon was responding to a lawsuit by Sen. Mark Kelly (D–Ariz.), a retired Navy captain whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had censured for the video and other public comments that offended him. Hegseth, who equated criticism of him with 'conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline,' sought to punish Kelly, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, by reducing his retirement rank and pension."

Sullum argues that just as GOP Sens. Cruz and Paul were under no obligation to support Obama's policies when he was president, Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers have every right to call out Trump.

"Like the Republican senators who criticized Obama's military policies," Sullum writes, "Kelly and his Democratic colleagues indisputably have a right, as Americans and as legislators charged with overseeing the Pentagon, to speak their minds, even when it irks the president."