Slotkin’s lawfare warning will outlast Trump

Peace among political rivals often depends on deterrence. Each side understands that destroying its opponents today invites the same treatment when power changes hands tomorrow. That understanding is supposed to keep a republic from becoming an endless exercise in retaliation revenge. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) seems eager to test it.

At an October 13 appearance at the University of Chicago, Slotkin called for “signature cases” against people she believes enabled President Trump. She wanted graduates considering administration jobs to worry that they might be “buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want” and to avoid taking those jobs. “I want that deterrence message sent,” she said.

Democrats are not hiding the ball. They plan on bringing lawfare back with a vengeance. Americans should take them at their word.

Slotkin says she meant accountability for actual violations of law, not punishment for accepting a government job. Then why advertise scaring young people away from public service as a desired result? Holding criminals accountable is one thing. Making prospective employees fear the next election is another.

She says she wants to pursue the people who “enabled” Trump’s “corruption.” Who defines enabling? Who decides whether carrying out a lawful policy, drafting a legal argument, or simply working for the wrong president is corrupt? Slotkin and her fellow congressional HR ladies, apparently.

Political appointees serve an elected president and help carry out his agenda. That does not relieve them of responsibility for their own unlawful acts, obviously. But neither does it make every aide personally culpable for every decision made above him. A junior employee at the Department of Homeland Security might execute a lawful order without ever having devised the policy. Does that make him an enabler worthy of an investigation?

Perhaps he should have resigned, saluted Our Democracy™, and gone to work for the Bulwark instead. “I was just following orders” is no defense to a crime, of course. But “I worked for an administration you despise” is not evidence of one, either.

This is what is alarming about Slotkin’s language. She says accountability. I hear a political warning directed at people who have not yet taken a job, much less committed an offense. Once the process itself becomes the punishment, prosecutors do not need to win every case to discourage the next generation from entering government.

And where does this lead? A departing Republican president could feel compelled to issue sweeping pardons for his staffers before they leave office. That would be a grotesque transformation of a constitutional safeguard into a routine parting gift.

Even then, presidential pardons cover federal offenses, not state charges or civil litigation. They cannot immunize crimes that have not occurred. A president could never make the threat of politically motivated litigation disappear by signing enough papers.

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Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) put the objection plainly: “I’m not aware of any Republican in office who has advocated the mirror-image approach — using the threat of prosecutions to deter people from serving in a Democratic administration.” His point deserves an answer. Is Slotkin trying to deter misconduct or Republican public service? Her own remarks invite the question.

Conservatives should not respond with a folksy, foolish “Schoolhouse Rock” pep talk about the glories of public service. Young people considering government jobs deserve to know that an incoming administration may examine their work. They also deserve confidence that investigators will pursue evidence of actual crimes, not guilt by association.

Democrats were serious about lawfare the first time around, and they will be again.

One-party rule has always been the goal. Young people need to be clear-eyed about what they are signing up for by working for Republicans, and voters need to understand the gravity of Democratic threats.

Democrats are not hiding the ball. They plan on bringing lawfare back with a vengeance. Americans should take them at their word.

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