Mark Kelly sees Trump trying anew to punish him after court flop

Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz, Bloomberg News on Feb 13, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Sen. Mark Kelly doesn’t expect President Donald Trump administration’s failure to convince a grand jury to indict him and other Democratic lawmakers for a video that told federal troops they can refuse “illegal orders” to at all lower tensions or prevent further actions.

“Sure — the grand jury didn’t indict me a couple of days ago, but I don’t put anything past these guys,” the Arizona Democrat said in a Bloomberg Television interview from the Munich Security Conference. “You know, the president often doubles down on bad ideas. I mean, he has a habit of doing this. So I expect him to continue with this effort.”

A Navy combat veteran and former astronaut, Kelly was on the shortlist of potential running mates for former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election, fueling speculation that he could make his own possible future run for the White House.

His comments on Friday sharpened his rhetorical showdown with Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and capped a week in which the White House was rebuffed on two fronts.

On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia failed to secure a grand jury indictment against the retired Navy captain and five other lawmakers over the video, The New York Times reported. A day later, a Washington federal judge blocked the Pentagon from pursuing disciplinary action against Kelly.

“It might sound like a couple of days ago when they failed to indict me, that was a good thing,” Kelly said. “But think about this for a second. The president just tried to throw myself and another U.S. senator and members of the House in prison. He’s trying to imprison us because he doesn’t like what we’re saying.”

The White House didn’t have an immediate comment on Kelly’s remarks.

Kelly appeared in the video alongside Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and four Democratic House members — all veterans of the military or U.S. intelligence agencies — that enraged Trump. Active-duty personnel “can refuse illegal orders,” Kelly said on the video.

It was posted amid Democratic congressional outrage over how Trump was deploying the military, including lethal strikes on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea. Trump later accused them of “seditious behavior” and urged that they be arrested.