Slotkin tells young Americans: Serve your country, lose your freedom
By Peter Navarro | October 26, 2026 | The Washington Times
President Kennedy asked a generation what it could do for its country. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan Democrat, has an answer for the next one: If you serve your country in a Republican administration, you will go to prison.
Ms. Slotkin delivered that threat to students at the University of Chicago on Oct. 13 and said the quiet part aloud: “I want that deterrence message sent.”
Deterrence is a word for Soviet tanks, Chinese missiles and Iranian centrifuges. Ms. Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, knows the word. She aimed it instead at young Republicans who are deciding whether to work for their own government.
When the backlash hit, Ms. Slotkin tried to walk it back, saying Democrats would go only after Republicans who actually broke the law.
Yet that is the trick of weaponized injustice. Josef Stalin’s secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, put it in nine words: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
I know this from personal experience. In April 2022, then-Rep. Slotkin voted along party lines to hold me in contempt of Congress for declining to testify before Congress after President Trump invoked executive privilege.
I was the first senior White House adviser ever imprisoned for honoring that privilege. For half a century, Justice Department policy under both parties held that if Congress can jail the president’s aides for keeping his confidences, the privilege is worthless. A 1984 Justice Department opinion put the rule in writing. It was not invented for Mr. Trump. It protects whoever holds the office.
I kept my oath. Ms. Slotkin put me in prison. She did it with the help of 217 other House Democrats, a Democratic judge, a Democratic jury and an all-Democratic appeals court panel.
When the justice system enables such partisan weaponization, it is no longer just. That is why my case remains on appeal.
Please know this: Lawfare’s punishment starts long before any verdict. Every subpoena means an attorney. Every accusation becomes a headline that follows you forever. Families drain their savings. Employers back away. Friends stop calling. You can win and still be ruined.