Threats against senator show democracy in the US is at risk - Yorkshire Post Letters

Following the spate of killings in the Caribbean Sea of alleged drug traffickers in motorboats by the US military, including one case where they murdered survivors clinging to the wreckage after a missile strike, Senator Mark Kelly and five others released a 90 second video reminding the military that they have the right to refuse illegal orders.

This enraged President Trump who said Kelly and the others, all of whom have military or intelligence backgrounds, should be prosecuted for sedition and be sentenced to death. Trump's Secretary for War, Pete Hegseth, tried and failed to have Senator Kelly's naval rank reduced.

Kelly was a captain in the US Navy, a combat pilot, an astronaut, and is the only engineering graduate in Congress. Following Trump's outburst Kelly received hundreds of death threats from Trump's supporters and is now under armed guard 24 hours a day. In 2011 Kelly's wife Gabby, also a politician, was seriously injured in an assassination attempt.

Trump also ordered the Department of Justice to charge Kelly, the Democrat Senator for Arizona, with sedition but a Grand Jury of 20 ordinary Americans threw that out preventing it going to trial - something extremely unusual as only the prosecution is allowed to argue a case before such a jury and 97 per cent of cases are won by the prosecution.

Interviewed on BBC Newsnight Senator Kelly stated that Trump was a bully, intimidating and silencing his perceived enemies in the military, the media, and in universities. His threats are real - from using lawfare, withholding funding, and suing critical media including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC. People are increasingly frightened to speak out and American democracy is under threat.