Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a former CIA operative, doubled down on her threats to maliciously prosecute Republican staffers and scare young conservatives away from serving in the Trump administration, pretending to be the victim of “weaponization” instead of an advocate for it.
Last week, Slotkin said she wanted a tacit threat of personal and professional ruin for any young conservative contemplating working for the Trump administration, stating, “I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him. I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? Like that sounds fun. I might get an opportunity.’ I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’ I want that deterrence message.”
The comments landed her an ethics complaint from the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA), which reads in part, “Threatening young professionals with future ‘problems’ for the mere sin of working for the President that the American People elected is an anathema to the very foundations of our political systems. It is already immoral to weaponize our government against those running for office or who have been elected in the form of lawfare. But it is another level to weaponize it against those who are entering their careers as public servants.”
The former CIA operative is also a member of the “Seditious Six,” a group of elected Democrats with military and national security ties who attempted a military soft coup against Trump late last year.
As The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann noted, GOP Senate leaders are obligated to, at very least, censure Slotkin. But President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Slotkin deserves to be “tried” in court — a comment the Michigan Democrat said had gone too far, falsely claiming that she simply “dared to talk about the corruption coming out of the White House.”
Slotkin should be censured by the Senate and then charged with treason. She is a Bolshevik terrorist, and this type of behavior cannot be tolerated in a free society. https://t.co/V88WImfyNT
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 19, 2026
“His supporters use a coordinated play to threaten, intimidate, and silence anyone who speaks up,” Slotkin said. “So if the president wants to investigate and arrest me, and even worse, as so many authoritarian leaders do with their political adversaries, then do it.”
Slotkin’s party, however, is behind the largest government weaponization scheme in U.S. history, attempting to jail Trump and thousands of his supporters, and this is not the first time that Slotkin has floated prosecution against her political enemies.
She used the same term, “signature cases,” in a September speech when identifying Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as deserving of decades in prison, as Miranda Devine noted in the New York Post.
But Slotkin now seems to be using that speech to gaslight critics into believing her threat was about the “corruption” of senior White House officials all along, and not about recent college graduates wanting to serve their country.
— Elissa Slotkin (@ElissaSlotkin) October 21, 2026I have been clear for some time on where I stand on prosecuting corruption and illegal acts.
In a speech a few weeks ago, I said we need to hold accountable the people and institutions who stole billions of our taxpayer dollars and weaponized the government against its people.… pic.twitter.com/QaCdVhRZiw
Other congressional Democrats, however, have come out in support of Slotkin, advancing her “calling out corruption” excuse and backing her claim that she is a victim, and giving unspoken approval to her call to ruin the lives of young conservatives.
“@SenatorSlotkin should never face threats of prosecution for calling out corruption, no matter how angry it makes the president,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said. “Threats and intimidation have no place in our democracy. I stand with Senator Slotkin.”
Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Mich., added that Slotkin “is a patriot, who has sworn an oath to serve multiple times. She called out blatant corruption and she was right to do so. It’s unacceptable to use the justice system to threaten your political opponents. These continued attacks against her are dangerous, and they are offensive to the ideals we all hold as Americans. It needs to stop.”
Conservatives like Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and American Moment CEO Nick Solheim, whose organizations graduate countless Republican staffers from their programs, both came out to defend conservative staffers, but also ensure that Republicans themselves understand the stakes of the fight.
“Senator Slotkin understands something too many politicians even on the Right still don’t: young conservatives are clear-eyed about the threat posed by the American Left,” Roberts said. “They are under no illusion that leftists play fair, or that they ultimately want the same things but prefer different ways of getting there. That makes them fearless and effective. But to leftists like Slotkin, it also makes them a threat.”
Solheim added, “We are going to help them get jobs, we are going to put them to work, and if anyone comes after them — they’ll have a fight on their hands.”
Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.