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Slotkin, Backing Trump’s Impeachment, Draws Instant Protests, and Applause Slotkin, Backing Impeachment, Draws Instant Protests, and Applause
(about 4 hours later)
ROCHESTER, Mich. — The blowback began on Monday even before Representative Elissa Slotkin took the lectern to announce she would vote to impeach President Trump. HOLLY, Mich. — Impeaching President Trump, Representative Elissa Slotkin said, “was pretty much the last thing I wanted to be working on in my first term as a congressperson.”
Dozens of angry Trump supporters bearing “Impeach Slotkin, Keep Trump” signs shouted down Ms. Slotkin, a first-term congresswoman, at a packed town hall-style meeting in a university ballroom, chanting “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Elissa Slotkin has got to go!” and “One-term congresswoman!” and “C.I.A. Hack!” — a reference to Ms. Slotkin’s past work as a C.I.A. analyst. Yet there she was at midnight Sunday, holed up in her farmhouse at a desk that had belonged to her grandfather — and, before that, President Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of war — clicking the “send” button on a newspaper op-ed article explaining why, after months of resisting impeachment, she would vote to charge the president with high crimes and misdemeanors.
Keeping her composure, Ms. Slotkin plowed through her statement — “Guys, let’s try to have a civil conversation,” she said at one point — and then took questions, though her pleas for civility were ignored. The blowback was quick and intense. Dozens of angry Trump supporters bearing “Impeach Slotkin, Keep Trump” signs shouted down Ms. Slotkin, a first-term Democratic congresswoman who represents a Republican-leaning district, at a packed town hall-style meeting on Monday morning in a university ballroom in the city of Rochester.
The more she explained her decision to constituents in her district north of Detroit, one that Mr. Trump won in 2016, the angrier and louder the protests grew. “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Elissa Slotkin has got to go!” they chanted, amid intermittent cries of “One-term congresswoman!” and “C.I.A. Hack!” — a reference to Ms. Slotkin’s past work as a C.I.A. analyst.
“MAGA! MAGA!” attendees shouted, repeating the president’s campaign slogan. “Four more years! Four more years!” But the voices on the other side, though not nearly as loud, were present in force. Most in the crowd of about 400 people leapt to their feet and applauded when Ms. Slotkin — plowing through her prepared statement as her pleas for civility were ignored — announced her intention to vote “yes” on Wednesday when the House holds historic votes on two articles of impeachment.
But the voices on the other side, though not nearly as loud, were present in force. Most in the crowd of about 400 people who gathered here on Monday leaped to their feet and applauded when Ms. Slotkin announced her intention to vote “yes” on Wednesday when the House holds its vote on the articles of impeachment. “Whether you agree with me or not, I have attempted to be transparent, to be communicative and to let you know what I was doing,” she said. “And for me, this was an issue of principle. I felt it in my bones.”
One of her supporters arrived with a competing sign: “We’ve got your back, Representative Slotkin.” So it has been all year for Ms. Slotkin, who served in Iraq as a C.I.A. analyst and in the Obama Defense Department before she ran for Congress in 2018, winning a seat that had been held by Republicans for nearly 20 years. Caught in the middle of the United States’ red-blue divide, she resisted impeachment for months, even after Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, issued a report detailing at least 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump.
So it has been all year for Ms. Slotkin, who served in Iraq as a C.I.A. analyst and in the Obama Defense Department before she ran for Congress in 2018, winning a seat that had been held by Republicans for 20 years. Caught in the middle of the United States’ red-blue divide, she resisted impeachment for months, even after Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, issued a report detailing at least 10 instances of obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump.
The story of how she arrived at her impeachment decision is the story of so many moderate Democrats in this year’s historic freshman class. Moved to run for public office to counter the rise of Mr. Trump, they flipped Republican seats and are now in danger of becoming one-term members of Congress — possibly costing their party control of the House — over a decision they tried mightily to avoid.The story of how she arrived at her impeachment decision is the story of so many moderate Democrats in this year’s historic freshman class. Moved to run for public office to counter the rise of Mr. Trump, they flipped Republican seats and are now in danger of becoming one-term members of Congress — possibly costing their party control of the House — over a decision they tried mightily to avoid.
Ms. Slotkin announced her decision in an opinion piece on Monday morning in The Detroit Free Press, making instant headlines here. She had submitted it the night before, as she pored through a thick, leather-bound binder containing the House Intelligence Committee’s report on Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and a thick tome containing the House of Representatives’ manual of rules, procedures and precedents. Ms. Slotkin’s opinion article published Monday morning in The Detroit Free Press made instant headlines in her district northwest of Detroit. She had spent much of the weekend poring through a thick, leather-bound binder containing the House Intelligence Committee’s report on Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and a thick tome containing the House’s manual of rules, procedures and precedents.
“I didn’t dream of being a politician,” Ms. Slotkin said in an interview Sunday night. “My whole life. This was not part of my normal plan. And if this district sees fit to elect someone else, then I will accept that and walk away with my head held high that I’ve made decisions based on principle, and not political calculus.” “I didn’t dream of being a politician my whole life,” Ms. Slotkin said in an interview on Sunday. “This was not part of my normal plan. And if this district sees fit to elect someone else, then I will accept that and walk away with my head held high that I’ve made decisions based on principle, and not political calculus.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. In Washington, Ms. Slotkin is part of a tight-knit group of moderate Democrats, some with national security or military backgrounds like herself. She is not the only centrist thinking, “If impeachment costs me my seat, so be it.” Several other moderate Democrats also told their constituents on Monday that they would be voting “yes,” many of them issuing statements that were equally frank about the political risk they knew they were taking in doing so.
And Ms. Slotkin knew what to expect on Monday. In September, after she and six other so-called national security freshmen wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post calling for an impeachment inquiry, she faced much the same reception. She has already drawn several Republican challengers, including Paul Junge, a former TV anchor in Lansing, Mich., who worked for the Trump administration before moving back to Michigan to run.
“She ran on the issue of getting together in unity, and she’s not doing that,” said Christina Fitchett-Hickson, a retired teacher who is campaigning to unseat another Democrat from Michigan, Representative Dan Kildee.
Dressed in a red and white Santa hat with the word “TRUMP” spelled in red glitter, Ms. Fitchett-Hickson was protesting in the parking lot at Oakland University in Rochester, the site of Monday’s meeting. Behind her, a truck bearing the words “Trump Unity” blared Christmas carols, altered with pro-Trump lyrics.
But inside the crowded hall, another retired teacher, Barbara Tymrakiewicz, brought a sign bearing the opposite message.
“We’ve got your back, Representative Slotkin,” it said.
For Ms. Slotkin, Monday’s meeting — and Wednesday’s impeachment vote — will be the culmination of an extraordinarily tumultuous first year on Capitol Hill. She arrived in January, a long-shot candidate having been swept into office on a Democratic wave, eager to make good on her central promise: to lower the cost of prescription drugs. She had avoided talk of impeachment, promised to be bipartisan and voted against Nancy Pelosi for speaker of the House.
But the impeachment question hovered in the background. On her first day in office, Ms. Slotkin’s fellow Michigan freshman, Representative Rashida Tlaib, was caught on video using a vulgarity to describe how she wanted to impeach Mr. Trump. Ms. Slotkin was asked what she thought.
“I didn’t love it,” she said.
Soon the Republican “tracker” who follows Ms. Slotkin with a video camera during her public events began trying to goad her into addressing impeachment. She ignored him.
But the pressure really began to build in the spring, she said, when Mr. Mueller released his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, and outlined at least 10 instances in which Mr. Trump tried to obstruct the investigation. Progressive activists and even some Democratic colleagues pushed her to call for an impeachment inquiry.
Ms. Slotkin was unpersuaded. “For me, the decision to call for an impeachment is such a big deal,” she said. “And you have to bring the country along with you. That was an important piece for me.”
Instead of seizing on the obstruction issue, she focused on the election interference, convening a task force to draft legislation aimed at securing the 2020 balloting. So when news broke that the president had tried to enlist a foreign power, Ukraine, to investigate his political rivals in a way that could affect a future election, Ms. Slotkin said, she could no longer avoid the topic.
“That certainly got our attention, and it was different,” she said. “It was prospective, not retrospective.”
When she read the anonymous whistle-blower’s complaint that touched off the inquiry — written in careful, methodical language — Ms. Slotkin said she knew instantly that it had been submitted by a C.I.A. officer.
“The writing style is exactly what we’re taught when we do analytic pieces at the agency,” she said.
The House Intelligence Committee hearings that followed were painful for her at times, she said. Ms. Slotkin has worked under two presidents — George W. Bush and Barack Obama — and she said it was difficult to see Mr. Trump attack the civil servants who testified.
“It felt very personal,” she said. “I could see myself in some of those folks who were up there.”
Over the past several months, Ms. Slotkin said, she has held four town hall-style meetings — Monday’s was the fifth — and her offices have received more than 1,500 phone calls and more than 6,500 emails and letters on impeachment.
She said she did not make her final decision until Sunday, after reading through all of the evidence, which convinced her, she wrote in The Detroit Free Press, that the president’s entreaties to a foreign power for help in an election lie “at the very heart of impeachable conduct.”
Ms. Slotkin did not convey her decision to Ms. Pelosi, who has said a vote for impeachment is a vote of conscience, and not one that she plans to pressure any Democrat to cast.
But Ms. Slotkin did share her decision with the other members of her freshman group with whom she wrote her original opinion article coming out in favor of an inquiry. Some of them are still trying to make their own decisions on the final vote.
Ms. Slotkin did what she could to keep Monday’s session a cordial affair. It was hosted by the Oakland University Center for Civic Engagement, which is devoted to improving public discourse. It began with a military honor guard and the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Much of her prepared statement was devoted to other issues: the high cost of prescription drugs and a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
But try as she might — “Guys, lets try to have a civil conversation,” she said at one point — she could not contain the angry voices in the back of the room. “MAGA! MAGA!” attendees shouted, using the abbreviated version of the president’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” “Four more years! Four more years!” they cried.
So she forged ahead, calmly talking through them, though she said later it was hard to hear herself speak. She said she was encouraged that there were a number of Trump supporters in the audience who were listening quietly.
Only once did she feel “my blood pressure go up.” It happened, Ms. Slotkin said, when she was talking about her deep concern about foreign interference American elections, and the heckling would not stop.
“For me, this was a really important moment to explain to my constituents why I made this decision,” she said. “And I wanted to be heard.”