A close Trump ally is pushing federal investigators to go after a Democratic senator, and he isn't stopping with her.
Mike Davis, founder and president of the conservative Article III Project, sent a letter Wednesday asking the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to investigate Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), the Washington Examiner reported. The letter, addressed to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, also urges the division to scrutinize Slotkin's staff, donors and colleagues.
Davis, who was once in the mix as a possible attorney general pick, took aim at comments Slotkin made Oct. 13 during a University of Chicago event with Vox editorial director Astead Herndon. There, the Michigan senator said she wanted to pursue "signature cases" tied to Trump and those around him.
"I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him," Slotkin said. She added that she hoped young graduates weighing administration jobs would conclude, "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," she said.
"[A] sitting United States Senator should understand the gravity of advocating legal and professional consequences for political opponents," Davis wrote. He argued Slotkin was describing an effort to scare off junior staffers for their political ties rather than to hold wrongdoers accountable. His letter also pointed to an Oct. 19 post on X in which Slotkin said lawyers who file frivolous cases to intimidate and jail political rivals should face consequences to their bar status.
The feud had already turned ugly. Responding to her remarks, Davis warned Slotkin she "will learn why we have the Second Amendment" if she pursued "illegal arrests and political persecutions" against young conservatives, and later posted, "Learn about the Second Amendment, sweetheart."
Slotkin accused him of "mobilizing death threats" against her and her staff, saying his posts amounted to a warning she could be shot. Davis told CNN the amendment "deters government tyrants from actually taking illegal action" and called her "unhinged" online.
Trump piled on Tuesday, saying Slotkin "should be tried." The senator, who already faced a grand jury inquiry this year that went nowhere over her message urging troops to refuse "illegal orders," fired back.
"I'm not going to be intimidated out of standing up for the rule of law and the country that has given me everything," she said.
Davis' letter comes on the heels of a separate Senate ethics complaint a conservative watchdog group filed over the same remarks. The Justice Department did not respond to the Examiner.