Elissa Slotkin, under investigation over Pentagon video, says president using ‘well-worn playbook’ to silence debate
Donald Trump is borrowing a strategy from authoritarian regimes to intimidate potential critics and discourage them from speaking out, according to a senator under investigation by his administration.
Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan, faces questioning after she organised and appeared in a video with other Democrats imploring military service members to refuse “illegal orders”. Fellow senator Mark Kelly and three Democrats from the House of Representatives are also being investigated.
To Slotkin, a former analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it is a deliberate effort to chill free speech that rhymes with her experience of dictatorships around the world.
“They’re now using a well-worn playbook that employs physical intimidation and legal intimidation to get, A, you to shut up, and B, for other people thinking of criticising the president on such issues to be dissuaded from doing so,” she told the Guardian in a phone interview.
