The Department of Defense is reportedly escalating its investigation into Senator Mark Kelly's video that urges American troops to defy “illegal orders."
A Pentagon official reportedly said Monday the investigation is now an “official Command investigation.”
The Pentagon recently announced the investigation after President Donald Trump’s social media post accusing Kelly, and the five other Democratic lawmakers in the video, of sedition “punishable by DEATH.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Kelly’s attorney has warned the Trump administration of "dangerous overreach."
The attorney’s letter comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a review of the Democratic senator who was among a group of lawmakers in a video calling on military personnel to defy “illegal orders.”
RELATED: Experts doubt the Pentagon can punish Kelly over the 'illegal orders' video
“There is no legitimate basis for any type of proceeding against Senator Kelly, and any such effort would be unconstitutional and an extraordinary abuse of power,” wrote Paul J. Fishman in the letter to Navy Secretary John Phelan.
Trump himself had lashed out at the lawmakers, who all have military backgrounds after years of service.
Kelly’s attorney warned of legal action if the department sought to pursue the senator in any forum — “criminal, disciplinary, or administrative.”
Fishman wrote they would “take all appropriate legal action on Senator Kelly’s behalf to halt the Administration’s unprecedented and dangerous overreach.”
Senator Kelly released the following statement in response on Monday:
“It should send a shiver down the spine of every patriotic American that the president and secretary of defense would abuse their power to come after me or anyone this way.
“It wasn’t enough for Donald Trump to say I should be hanged. It wasn’t enough for Pete Hegseth to threaten me with a court martial. Now they are threatening everything I fought and served for across twenty-five years in the U.S. Navy—all because I repeated something every service member is taught.
“The United States has the most professional military in the world—I trust their integrity. What I don’t trust is Pete Hegseth, a recklessly unqualified secretary of defense who has already shown he will corrupt any process to make an example out of me and send a message to every veteran and every American that they shouldn’t speak out.
“If Trump and Hegseth think this will stop me from doing what I’ve done every day of my adult life—fighting for this country—then they’ve got the wrong guy. Tomorrow, and the next day, I will keep doing my job representing Arizona.”
