Opinion: Mike Davis Says Sen. Slotkin's Call to Deter Young Conservatives With Prosecutions Is 'Un-American'

This is a summary of an opinion column. The views below belong to its author, Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, not to RightNewsRightNow.

First, what Slotkin said. Fox News reported separately that Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said at an Oct. 13 University of Chicago event that she wants to pursue "signature cases" against people who "enabled" President Trump. She said she wants graduates weighing a job in the administration to think it "might be buying myself a ton of problems," and added, "I want that deterrence message sent." Her critics include the head of the Office of Personnel Management, who called the comments "disappointing and unprofessional." Fox says a clip of the exchange has circulated online.

Davis's argument is that this is the next step in what he calls years of lawfare against Trump and his supporters. He lists the Russia investigation, the Jan. 6 prosecutions, debanking, the government's review of records of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the Mar-a-Lago raid, four indictments, and a nearly half-billion-dollar New York judgment that an appeals court later threw out. He says Slotkin understands presidential immunity protects Trump himself, so she is aiming at the people around him, who have no such protection.

He singles out the ballroom. Davis writes that one example of a Slotkin target is the people who helped build the new White House ballroom. Davis says building a ballroom is not a crime, and asks whether the Supreme Court justices who sided against a suit to halt it, and their clerks, would be next.

His remedy is aggressive. He wants the Senate Ethics Committee to open an investigation, every senator put on the record about whether they support her goal, and the Justice Department to look at possible violations of federal civil rights conspiracy and color-of-law statutes. He argues the Speech and Debate Clause does not shield a senator's remarks to students.

He also points to Angie Nixon, the Democratic Socialist running for the Senate in Florida, who told CNN she would want Sen. Ashley Moody "locked up and punished in jail." Davis calls both comments proof that the left is "open about their terrifying, Republic-destroying goal."

Keep in mind that this is one advocate's view, written in strong language. The legal steps he asks for are his own recommendations, and Fox's separate news report does not say any investigation of Slotkin exists. We have not verified his history of the cases, and the column does not include Slotkin's own answer to his charge.