When Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) appeared on CNN to defend his colleague Mark Kelly's controversial video urging military personnel to refuse "illegal orders," he made a telling admission. "The script got to me," Gallego said, describing how he'd received the prepared statement but hadn't had time to record it. The casual reference revealed what critics had suspected: the video featuring six Democratic lawmakers wasn't spontaneous conscience-speaking but a coordinated operation with an external author.

The question is who wrote the script. And the answer illuminates a familiar network of progressive organizations that have long worked to reshape American foreign policy while maintaining what one declassified document called "a low profile and relative distance."

Researchers tracking the coordination identified several key players. Social media analysts DataRepublican and PepesGrandma documented connections between Win Without War, the National Lawyers Guild, and the timing of the congressional video. Their research revealed an operational convergence that extends beyond ideological alignment into coordinated messaging campaigns.

Convergent Messaging

On November 11, just days before the video appeared, the National Lawyers Guild's Military Law Task Force published guidance urging service members to refuse illegal orders. The document outlined scenarios that aligned precisely with Democratic talking points about Trump administration policies: potential military action in Venezuela or Panama, "preemptive" strikes against Iran or China, use of nuclear weapons, and domestic military deployments.

The timing wasn't coincidental. Win Without War, a 501(c)(4) organization with ties to Soros's Open Society Foundations, publicly defended the Democratic lawmakers, stating they had sent "servicemembers a crucial reminder that they should disobey illegal orders." The organization had already erected a billboard in North Carolina making similar appeals to military personnel.

Win Without War was previously named New Security Action, according to social media analysts tracking the network. The organization operates as a coalition of 37 national groups including MoveOn.org, CREDO Action, and the Council for a Livable World, and functions as a program of the Center for International Policy.

The Soros Nexus

The Center for International Policy has received funding from George Soros's philanthropic empire over the years, though the exact amounts to Win Without War specifically remain opaque. What's documented is the broader pattern. In documents released by DCLeaks in 2016, an Open Society Foundations report stated the organization wanted to "construct a diversified portfolio of grants" while maintaining "a low profile and relative distance, particularly on the advocacy front".

This preference for indirect influence through nominally independent organizations isn't new. During the Iran Deal fight under Obama, Soros-funded groups created an echo chamber to promote the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action while attacking opponents as warmongers and Israel-firsters. The playbook was simple: coordinate messaging across ostensibly separate organizations, generate media coverage that presents the coordinated position as organic consensus, and isolate anyone who dissents from the manufactured narrative.

The seditious six video follows this pattern. Gallego admitted a "script" had been distributed to multiple members of Congress. Six veterans and intelligence officials read nearly identical language on camera. The National Lawyers Guild provided legal infrastructure. Progressive advocacy groups amplified the message. And when the administration pushed back, the same network transformed the lawmakers into victims of Trump's "weaponization" of federal agencies.

The National Lawyers Guild Connection

Social media researchers noted that Win Without War partners with the National Lawyers Guild, which supports antifa. The Guild has a long history of involvement in progressive causes, dating to its 1937 founding. During the Cold War, the organization was investigated for communist sympathies. Today, it describes itself as providing legal support for activists and marginalized communities.

The numbers tell the story of the Guild's recent transformation. Membership remained flat at fewer than 2,500 from 2005 to 2015. Then it began growing dramatically. In 2020 alone, 5,000 new members joined, bringing total membership to over 9,400. This membership explosion coincided with the Trump administration and the rise of antifa, suggesting coordinated responses to perceived threats.

The Guild's 2020 annual report documented its operational scale: the organization coordinated legal support for over 20,000 arrested protesters that year. Later, it sent a letter to the Biden administration calling for federal charges to be dropped against more than 350 arrestees from the 2020 demonstrations. This level of coordination requires substantial infrastructure, funding, and advance planning.

The Guild operates through more than 50 local chapters and over 100 student chapters at American law schools. Law students represent its fastest-growing membership category. The largest and most active chapters are located in New York City, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, and Massachusetts. These same urban centers have been hotspots for progressive activism and protest movements.

Officers from the Guild's San Francisco chapter published an article entitled "We are all antifa" that promised "the National Lawyers Guild won't stand by as fascists and white supremacists seek to take power in the streets and halls of government." In June 2020, the Guild issued a statement opposing Trump's call to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, arguing that doing so was "merely an attempt to criminalize ordinary people who are exercising their right to protest."

Journalist Andy Ngo, in his 2021 book "Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy," described the Guild as "in effect, the legal arm of antifa." The description fits the operational reality. When antifa-associated groups stage protests or face prosecution, Guild lawyers provide legal infrastructure. When progressive activists get arrested, Guild chapters coordinate bail and legal defense. When Congress needs talking points about military disobedience, the Guild publishes them days before lawmakers record their video.

The Guild's Military Law Task Force has been publishing guidance on refusing military orders for years, particularly around controversial deployments. Their materials note service members can seek conscientious objector status or file Inspector General complaints about potentially illegal orders. The November 11 guidance expanded these themes to specifically reference Trump administration policies: potential military action in Venezuela or Panama, preemptive strikes against Iran or China, use of nuclear weapons, and domestic military deployments.

What makes the coordination significant isn't that these organizations share ideological positions. It's the operational convergence: the Guild publishes legal framing on November 11, the video appears days later with six members of Congress reading prepared remarks, and Win Without War immediately defends the action while threatening billboard campaigns targeting military installations. The researchers who documented these connections revealed a network operating with precision timing and coordinated messaging across multiple platforms.

Follow the Money

Win Without War's funding structure deliberately obscures donor identities. While Win Without War operates as a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, its partner Win Without War Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) that can receive tax-deductible donations. This dual structure is common among advocacy groups seeking to maximize both lobbying flexibility and donor tax benefits.

The National Lawyers Guild employs similar financial architecture. The Guild itself operates as a 501(c)(4), while the National Lawyers Guild Foundation functions as a separate 501(c)(3) that reported nearly $4.5 million in net assets in 2019. From 2017 through 2023, the Foundation provided $3.7 million in grants to the Guild's national office, creating a funding pipeline that supports coordinated legal operations across the country.

The Guild has received funding from multiple progressive sources. Capital Research Center documented a $25,000 grant from the Soros family's Open Society Foundation. The CS Fund has provided matching grants to the Guild's Mass Defense Program. Other donors include the Schwab Charitable Fund, which provided $133,700 from 2017-2020, and Warsh Mott Legacy, which contributed $110,000 from 2016-2018.

In 2020, the Guild reported $2.78 million in total revenue, including $2.38 million in contributions, gifts, and grants. Only $249,481 came from membership dues, meaning the vast majority of operational funding derives from external donors rather than grassroots members. This funding structure enables coordinated campaigns that individual members couldn't sustain independently.

What's documented is the Center for International Policy's role housing Win Without War as a program. The Center has received Open Society funding for various initiatives over the years. These grants flow through multiple organizational layers, making it difficult to trace how much money ultimately reaches any specific initiative like the military video campaign.

But the funding trail matters less than the coordination pattern. Progressive donors like Soros have created an ecosystem of nominally independent organizations that pursue aligned agendas through apparently separate channels. When an initiative requires legal cover, the National Lawyers Guild provides it. When it requires public advocacy, groups like Win Without War mobilize. When it requires congressional voices, sympathetic lawmakers who share the donors' worldview participate.

The Iran Deal Echo

The seditious six campaign mirrors the Iran Deal media operation documented by Obama aide Ben Rhodes. Rhodes told the New York Times he created an echo chamber of newly minted arms control experts, friendly journalists, and progressive advocacy groups who were "saying things that validated what we had given them to say."

The current operation works similarly. The National Lawyers Guild establishes legal predicate. Progressive groups provide organizational infrastructure. Sympathetic lawmakers lend official credibility. Media outlets amplify the message as bipartisan concern from veterans and intelligence officials. Anyone questioning the coordination gets accused of attacking decorated service members.

The difference is Trump isn't trying to sell a nuclear agreement with Iran. He's trying to enforce immigration law and combat drug trafficking. The same networks that defended Iran now position themselves as defenders of military conscience against "illegal" domestic deployments and Caribbean drug interdiction operations that multiple administrations have conducted.

Strategic Ambiguity

None of the six lawmakers has identified a specific illegal order they believe Trump has issued. This ambiguity is strategic. By warning against unnamed future illegalities, the campaign creates preemptive suspicion of any controversial military action. It invites individual service members to substitute personal political judgment for chain of command while providing no clear legal standard for doing so.

Former military lawyers note that orders are presumed lawful and service members "disobey at their peril". The only way to determine legality definitively is through court-martial after the fact. The Democratic lawmakers' video encourages active-duty personnel to make these determination themselves in real-time, potentially fracturing unit cohesion during operations.

The National Lawyers Guild's guidance acknowledges this reality while still encouraging selective disobedience. Their materials state service members' oath is "to the Constitution (which incorporates international treaties ratified by the U.S. on human rights and the law of war), not to the Commander-In-Chief". This framing invites personnel to elevate international law above presidential authority, a constitutional theory at odds with unitary executive doctrine.\

The Playbook Exposed

Gallego's admission that he received a script revealed the coordination these groups typically conceal. Theater requires suspended disbelief. When actors acknowledge they're reading someone else's lines, the illusion collapses. Gallego's candor about receiving an external script undermined the narrative that six veterans independently decided to warn their former comrades.

The FBI and Department of War investigations into the video will determine whether any laws were violated. But the broader pattern is clear regardless of criminal liability. Progressive organizations coordinate messaging campaigns through layers of apparently independent groups. They recruit sympathetic officials to voice positions drafted elsewhere. They create echo chambers where the same position reverberates from multiple sources until it sounds like consensus.

When Soros's Open Society network wanted to promote the Iran Deal, they funded groups that funded other groups until the paper trail grew impossible to trace. When they want to undermine Trump's use of military force, they employ the same structure. The National Lawyers Guild provides legal framework. Win Without War provides advocacy muscle. Sympathetic lawmakers provide official credibility. And if anyone asks whether this coordination exists, the answer comes back that these are independent actors exercising free speech.

China Implications

The seditious six campaign targets Trump's most controversial military initiatives: Caribbean drug interdiction and potential domestic deployments. What it notably avoids is criticism of his China policy. This omission aligns with the broader progressive foreign policy establishment's approach to Beijing.

Organizations like the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, backed by both Soros and Charles Koch, promote "restraint" in U.S. foreign policy. In practice, this means opposing military action against Iran, resisting domestic security operations, and questioning defense spending increases. What it consistently doesn't mean is confronting China's military expansion, trade manipulation, or human rights abuses.

Different ideological factions converge on operational objectives that serve Beijing's interests even when their stated rationales differ. Progressive groups oppose military action as imperialism. Libertarian groups oppose it as government overreach. Both positions leave China's regional ambitions unchallenged.

The seditious six video doesn't mention China. It focuses on immigration enforcement and drug interdiction, operations that don't threaten Chinese interests. This selective concern reveals priorities. When military action might affect Iran or domestic politics, progressive groups mobilize lawmakers to question legality. When it involves countering Beijing, these same voices remain silent.

The Network Persists

The six lawmakers have turned the FBI investigation into a fundraising opportunity, with multiple Democrats sending appeals citing Trump's "weaponization" of federal agencies. This transformation of potential legal jeopardy into political capital demonstrates the ecosystem's resilience. The same donor networks that funded the original campaign now fund the defense against investigation.

Gallego warned military personnel investigating Kelly that "there will be consequences" after Trump leaves office. This explicit threat to officers conducting legitimate inquiries shows how completely the progressive network has internalized its immunity. They coordinate campaigns questioning military chain of command, then threaten investigators who examine whether this coordination violates law.

The arrogance reflects confidence in their institutional position. These networks survived Trump's first term. They helped create the Russia collusion narrative that hamstrung his foreign policy. They defended the Iran Deal against efforts to withdraw. They opposed every major Trump initiative from immigration enforcement to Middle East policy. Now they're positioning to do it again, starting with a coordinated campaign to encourage military disobedience.

The script Gallego received didn't originate in a congressional office. It came from organizations that have spent years building infrastructure to oppose policies they disagree with. Those organizations receive funding from donors who prefer to maintain "a low profile and relative distance." But sometimes the distance collapses, and the coordination becomes visible.

When a senator admits on national television that multiple lawmakers received an external script, it reveals the machinery usually hidden from view. Progressive donors fund think tanks that write position papers. Advocacy groups translate those papers into talking points. Sympathetic lawmakers read those talking points on camera. Media outlets amplify the message as bipartisan concern. And if anyone questions the coordination, they're accused of attacking veterans' right to free speech.

The seditious six video will fade from headlines. The FBI investigation may or may not produce charges. But the network that created the video remains. The organizations persist. The funding flows continue. The same players will surface in the next manufactured controversy, reading someone else's script while claiming to speak from conscience.

The researchers who documented these connections, DataRepublican and PepesGrandma among others, performed the essential work of making visible what these networks prefer to keep hidden. They traced the timing, identified the organizational relationships, and revealed the coordination that turns separate actions into a unified campaign. Their work demonstrates what investigative journalism has always required: attention to detail, skepticism of official narratives, and willingness to follow connections wherever they lead.

The National Lawyers Guild's membership explosion from 2,500 to over 9,400 between 2015 and 2020 wasn't organic growth. It was mobilization. The coordination of legal support for 20,000 arrested protesters in a single year wasn't spontaneous. It was infrastructure. The November 11 guidance on refusing military orders, followed days later by six members of Congress reading prepared remarks, wasn't coincidence. It was a campaign.

The only question is whether anyone will bother to ask who wrote it.