Slotkin, Backing Impeachment, Draws Instant Protests, and Applause

Dozens of angry Trump supporters bearing “Impeach Slotkin, Keep Trump” signs shouted down 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 “CIA Hack!” — a reference to Slotkin’s past work as a CIA analyst.

Keeping her composure, 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 more she explained her decision to constituents in her district north of Detroit, one that Trump won in 2016, the angrier and louder the protests grew.

“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 who gathered here Monday leaped to their feet and applauded when Slotkin announced her intention to vote “yes” Wednesday when the House holds its vote on the articles of impeachment.

One of her supporters arrived with a competing sign: “We’ve got your back, Representative Slotkin.”

So it has been all year for Slotkin, who served in Iraq as a CIA 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 Mueller, the special counsel, issued a report detailing at least 10 instances of obstruction of justice by 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 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.

Slotkin announced her decision in an opinion piece 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 Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and a thick tome containing the House of Representatives’ manual of rules, procedures and precedents.

“I didn’t dream of being a politician,” 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.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .