Democratic senator sparks controversy over comments on investigating the Trump administration

By Ellis Kim, CNN

(CNN) — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin is drawing criticism from President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans after suggesting congressional investigations could deter recent graduates from joining the Trump administration.

The controversy stemmed from Slotkin’s remarks at a University of Chicago event last week, when she was asked how Congress could reassert its role as a check on the Trump administration. Slotkin said if Democrats regained the majority in Congress, they should look to pass major domestic bills and use their oversight powers to focus on “signature” examples of corruption by the Trump administration, targeting not just the president, but also aides who did his “bidding.”

“I wanna look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president but on the people who enabled him,” the Michigan Democrat said. “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’ … 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 sent.”

The remarks sparked backlash from Republicans, including Trump, who on Monday called Slotkin a “low life” who is “ruining her state.”

“What they’re doing is really discouraging people from going into politics. No, a weaponized government of Democrats, that’s what they’ve done,” Trump said when asked about the senator’s remarks.

Sen. Mike Lee accused Slotkin of threatening young, politically inclined Americans. Mike Davis, the head of a conservative legal group, accused her of trying to scare young people away from government and wrote she should “learn about the Second ​Amendment, sweetheart.”

Slotkin said Davis, in those comments, was suggesting she be shot, and that it amounted to the mobilization of “death threats” against her and her staff “for sport.”

Davis later said, “Elissa Slotkin can pretend she’s the victim all she wants, but she expressly called for the arrest of political opponents to deter their young supporters from public service. That is textbook fascism.”

The controversy over the comments comes in the final sprint to the midterm elections with Democrats increasingly optimistic they could win the House and potentially even the Senate. Both parties are already bracing for what is expected to be an outpouring of congressional investigations into the Trump administration if Democrats prevail.

A group that identifies itself as the University of Chicago’s “leading student-run conservative & libertarian publication” clipped a portion of Slotkin’s comments in an X post, which has been viewed over 7 million times. In response to that clip, Lee wrote, “It is absolutely disgraceful to threaten young Americans for participating in politics and serving their country.”

Slotkin said in response on X that the Utah Republican was “lying about what I said,” and wrote, “spare us the manufactured outrage.”

The Michigan senator noted she was the target of Trump’s Justice Department, which investigated her and other Democratic lawmakers after they posted a video urging service members and intelligence officials to disobey any illegal orders from the administration.

“If not for an anonymous group of grand jury members standing up for America’s laws, I’d be criminally indicted for sedition. President Trump has turned the government against people, with raucous support from you and virtually all D.C. Republicans,” she wrote in a post to Lee.

“If you have aided in the corrupt use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to benefit the President or his family, or you have violated the law in order to carry out guidance from the President, you should be held accountable,” she wrote. “And given how rampant that corruption appears to the average American, people looking to work for his Administration should realize that while the Supreme Court has granted the President immunity, it has not done the same for those who do illegal things at his behest.”

Other Trump administration officials, including Director of the Office of Personnel Management Scott Kupor, have chastised Slotkin’s comments.

“This is incredibly disappointing and unprofessional coming from a US Senator - endorsing political prosecutions to dissuade patriotic Americans from serving their country,” he wrote. “In contrast, we at @USOPM believe in recruiting the best and brightest early career prospects.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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