The FBI has launched an investigation into the six Democratic lawmakers who recently filmed a video telling military members they are not obligated to follow illegal orders.

The bureau`s scheduling of interviews with the lawmakers comes after Trump called the group "traitors" and said the video amounted to "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"

Several lawmakers who appeared in the video noted they had been contacted.

"Last night, the FBI`s Counterterrorism Division appeared to open an inquiry into me in response to a video he did not like," Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, wrote Tuesday on social platform X.

"The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place. He believes in weaponizing the federal government against his [perceived] enemies and does not believe laws apply to him or his Cabinet," she continued. "He uses legal harassment as an intimidation tactic, to scare people out of speaking up."

The video features the six lawmakers, each with military and intelligence backgrounds, speaking directly to active service members and saying, "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."

The House members in the video, Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) and Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), also said they were contracted by the FBI through the House Sergeant at Arms.

"President Trump is using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress," they said in a joint statement.

"No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution," the group wrote. "We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship."

Both U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI declined to comment.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last week stopped short of saying the posts could be considered language associated with an insurrection but did say any Justice Department probe "would absolutely be under what these - what their intent was in saying this."

The lawmakers involved have dismissed the criticism, saying they were well within their First Amendment rights to state a fact. The video comes both as U.S. troops are being domestically deployed into cities and asked to carry out deadly strikes against small boats in the Caribbean.

The Trump administration has not provided evidence to back its claims that the boats are ferrying drugs; and law enforcement traditionally interdicts boats suspected of illegal activity, rather than attacking them.

"Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren`t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear," the lawmakers said in the video. "You can refuse illegal orders...you must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution."

Military members face conflicting directives. While they must obey orders, lawmakers have expressed concern they could be held accountable for unlawful killings.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last month pressed the Justice Department to cite any legal authority for the boat strikes, noting military members are in the confusing position of being barred from carrying out illegal killings while also facing penalties if they do not follow orders.

The United States Code of Military Justice also "prohibits the premeditated and unlawful killing of a human being" but that it also requires obeying orders, "putting our service members in the impossible position of risking criminal prosecution for carrying out an unlawful order to kill civilians or risking prosecution for disobeying superior orders," they wrote.

The Justice Department investigation is the second probe to result from the video.

The Pentagon announced Monday it had initiated an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) to "determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures."

Kelly saw the probe as pushback on his scrutiny of the administration, including the video.

"If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won`t work," he wrote Monday on X. I`ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Tuesday night criticized the Trump administration for going after Kelly and the other lawmakers.

"Senator Kelly valiantly served our country as an aviator in the U.S. Navy before later completing four space shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut. To accuse him and other lawmakers of treason and sedition for rightfully pointing out that servicemembers can refuse illegal orders is reckless and flat-out wrong," she wrote on X.

"The Department of Defense and FBI surely have more important priorities than this frivolous investigation."