The Trump administration might need to up its judge-shopping game.

Yesterday, DC Senior District Judge Richard J. Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, blocked the Pentagon’s effort to bust retired Navy Captain Mark Kelly in rank and dock his military retirement pay for taking part in a seditious video made by Democrat lawmakers back in November.

The 90-second video infamously encouraged sitting members of our military and our intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders” from their commander-in-chief — without having the decency to cite any examples of the illegal orders they might be receiving. At the time, I called them The Scummy Six Insurrectionists, and it seemed to fit. Think about it: None of these shameless opportunists, nor any of their Democrat congressional colleagues, gave a hoot about our warriors when the Biden administration forced them to take an experimental, ineffective, and potentially harmful COVID vaccine under threat of being dismissed from the military if they refused.

All these sleazebags — Kelly, his fellow Senator Elissa Slotkin, and Representatives Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, and Jason Crow — are trying to do is undermine the robust, America-first foreign policy of Donald Trump. “Your vigilance is critical,” they told their dwindling ranks of leftist fellow-travelers. “And know that we have your back.”

Vigilance against what? Against their superior officers and their commander-in-chief?

“This Court,” said Judge Leon yesterday, “has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.”

Notice that Leon referred to the Pentagon as the “Defendants” here. That’s because this was a lawsuit filed by the whiny, sniveling Kelly against War Secretary Pete Hegseth, whom he said had targeted him with “extreme rhetoric and punitive retribution.”

“This will be immediately appealed,” posted Hegseth from his personal account. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain.’”

Leon’s ruling was the second blow of a one-two punch this week in favor of seditious behavior by Democrat lawmakers. On Tuesday, federal prosecutors failed to secure a grand jury indictment of the Seditious Six. “Today,” said a triumphant Slotkin, “it was a grand jury of anonymous American citizens who upheld the rule of law and determined this case should not proceed. Hopefully, this ends this politicized investigation for good.” She added, nonsensically, “[It] wasn’t just an embarrassing day for the Administration. It was another sad day for our country.”

Kelly, Slotkin, and their ilk should know better than to engage in CIA-style operations against a sitting U.S. president, but I suspect this was all part of a plan. The Democrats, after all, aren’t just The Party That Cheats. They’re also The Party of Weakness, and they must’ve known they needed to do something, anything, to counteract that hard-earned and poisonous reputation.

And sure enough, the Seditious Six have been lightning-quick to fundraise off the judge’s decision. “In addition to a flurry of social media posts and two afternoon press conferences,” Politico reports, “several have been making the cable news rounds and scheduled appearances on high-profile late night TV shows — signs that they see political opportunity in Trump’s attacks and are hoping to bottle that clout.”

It’s the nature of Donald Trump that, in addition to being the Democrats’ worst enemy, he’s also their best friend when it comes to fundraising. “The strategy reflects a broader dynamic for the Democratic Party: Trump’s actions often serve as their best fundraising tool.” Indeed, a Politico analysis of Democrat fundraising organization ActBlue shows that “many of the party’s largest online fundraising spikes last year came after a Democrat stood up to — or was attacked by — Trump.”

Clearly, the Democrats can’t live with Donald Trump. But they can’t live without him, either.