Slotkin Vows Bipartisan Conversation On ‘Tough And Complicated’ Issue Of Domestic Terrorism

By Todd A. Heywood, the Michigan Advance

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) is bringing her years of experience evaluating intelligence on the growth of extremism and militias in Iraq to bear on a national conversation about confronting homegrown terror.

The second-term lawmaker representing the 8th District was just appointed as chair of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism. Using that post, she announced Feb. 4 she intends to lead a year long conversation with lawmakers about how best to define and address domestic terrorism and extremism.

“It’s a tough and complicated issue,” she said in a press call. “Right now the most important thing we can do is learn some of the lessons from the post-9/11 era.”

She said the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol signaled the end of the post-9/11 era, noting that domestic terrorism was a bigger threat to American security than foreign terror. That’s something FBI Director Christopher Wray said in testimony before Congress in September.

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“Everything from racially-motivated violent extremists to violent anarchist extremists, militia types, sovereign citizens, you name it. Of the domestic terrorism threats, we last year elevated racially-motivated violent extremism to be a national threat priority commensurate with a homegrown violent extremists,” Wray testified, the Austin American Statesman reported. “That’s the jihadist-inspired people here and with ISIS.”

At the time he indicated there were “just north” of 1,000 domestic terror cases under investigation by the FBI.

While Slotkin is calling for the country to examine the issue, she also fully understands the razor’s edge she and other lawmakers will be balancing as they find a “common vocabulary,” to define and discuss domestic terrorism without overstepping constitutional rights.

She said for her the “rubicon” between First Amendment rights is crossed when groups are “willing to use or incite violence.”

Within this context, Slotkin said she would support a 9/11-style bipartisan commission to explore how the Jan. 6 events unfolded and how it was allowed to escalate into violence and deaths. At the same time, she said she was not ready at this time to call for a bipartisan commission to look at domestic terrorism “writ large.”

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She said using her own definition of terrorism, she would cast a ballot to remove freshman U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for her support of inciting violence and bigotry from her committee assignments. That vote took place Thursday evening after the Republican caucus failed to punish Greene on their own.

And Slotkin said she believes former President Donald Trump met the definition of a domestic terrorist.

Slotkin said she will work with GOP colleagues to hammer out a process to address concerns including civil liberties, law enforcement capacities, creation of terror designations for domestic groups and how to prevent and intervene in radicalization in communities across the country.

She said there would need to be an assessment of the role of social media in extremism and how to hold them accountable. That, in turn, will likely require a review of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law holds social media purveyors harmless for speech such as violent incitement, hate violence, threats, harassment or other forms of prohibited and regulated speech.

“It’s complicated and I’m going to try my best to show we can have difficult conversations on issues that we disagree on, even vehemently disagree on, without the vitriol,” she said.

This story was originally published by the Michigan Advance. For more stories from the Michigan Advance, visit MichiganAdvance.com.