One Republican Lawmaker Speaks Out After Mark Kelly Notes GOP Silence on ‘Sedition’ Controversy

President Donald Trump and Republicans have been vocal about blaming the left’s supposed violent rhetoric for increasing political violence in the U.S., particularly after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But when Trump himself threatened capital punishment for a group of Democratic lawmakers over what he falsely claimed to be sedition, one of those Democrats, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, said his GOP colleagues have fallen silent. “We’ve heard very little, basically crickets, from Republicans in the United States Congress about what the President has said about hanging members of Congress,” Kelly told CBS News on Sunday. The next day, the Trump Administration escalated its attacks on the group of Democrats, who called on servicemembers to resist “illegal orders” in a video last week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth branded the group—which included Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania—“the Seditious Six” and said that his department would specifically investigate Kelly, a retired Navy captain, for a potential breach of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and may even recall him for court-martial proceedings. Read More: ‘It Won’t Work’: Mark Kelly Pushes Back Against Pentagon Investigation Into Him While most Republican lawmakers have remained silent, one House member—Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska—spoke out against the latest move by the Administration. “Amateur hour once again at the Department of Dense,” Bacon posted on social media late Monday. “I thought the video by six Dems was unnecessary and foolish. But the threats of sedition charges and courts martial in response are also crazy. Let’s show some common sense and restraint.” In replies to the post on X, Bacon doubled down, calling the Democrats’ video “unnecessary and dumb” and “silly” but “not illegal” while calling the Trump Administration’s threats “dumber.”  Bacon is one of a small handful of Republicans who haven’t fallen in line with Trump’s agenda to the tee. The 62-year-old Air Force veteran, who was first elected in 2016, has earned a reputation as a centrist, as the GOP moves further to the right under Trump. Bacon has deviated from the party several times: he called for Hegseth’s resignation following the so-called Signalgate controversy earlier this year, lambasted Trump as “weak” and “pro-Russian” in his approach to the war in Ukraine to the point of considering resigning, and has asserted Congress’ authority in implementing tariffs despite the President asserting executive powers to put them in place. In June, Bacon announced that he would not seek a sixth term in Congress in the 2026 midterms, telling reporters he wished to be remembered, as he’d expressed before, as “a Christian first, American second, then a Republican.” While Bacon is a rarity among current GOP lawmakers, a number of former Republicans have also spoken out against the Trump Administration’s accusations of sedition against political rivals. Former Sen. Jeff Flake, who did not run for re-election in 2018 and endorsed Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 election and then served as an Ambassador under President Biden, defended his fellow Arizonan in a post on X, calling Kelly “a good man who has served his country honorably in the past and continues to serve honorably in the U.S.Senate.” “Common sense and basic morality should have prevented the outrage,” former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who made multiple runs for President as a Republican and a Libertarian, posted. “The uniform code of military justice claims that military personnel have a ‘legal and ethical’ duty to disregard unlawful orders. This is a worthy debate that needs to occur.” Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois—who said earlier this year that he is probably “closer” to a Democrat now after leaving Congress in 2023 as one of the few Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot—responded on X to the Defense Department’s announcement of its investigation into Kelly, saying: “This won’t end how you think it will.” And former Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a frequent intraparty critic of Trump who briefly left the GOP to identify as a Libertarian before leaving Congress in 2021, posted on X that “the chances of a successful prosecution” in Kelly’s case are “zero point zero percent”—which legal scholars in comments to the media have largely echoed.  “Everything with this administration is performative nonsense to cater to an ever-shrinking base,” Amash said. “We don’t live in North Korea. Anyone here can freely state that service members must refuse unlawful orders.”