In Michigan, the CIA Beat the FBI
Whichever way the elections in Michigan swung, the intelligence community would have gained a new ally. Retired CIA analyst and incumbent Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, was running for a promotion to the Senate, facing off against retired FBI agent and former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican. In the end, the former CIA officer prevailed. Slotkin has won her race, according to the Associated Press, becoming the first CIA veteran to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Michigan’s elections were not just about Michigan. They were about the place of the American national security state in the world. In the presidential race, local Muslim and Arab-American communities became an unexpected swing demographic when they peeled off in protest of the Biden administration’s support for wars in the Middle East. And the Senate race between two hawkish intelligence veterans attracted a lot of out-of-state donations, many of them linked to the Washington, D.C., beltway.
Slotkin received two-thirds of her campaign donations from outside of Michigan, one of the largest out-of-state money influxes to a House incumbent, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance. Meanwhile, Rogers received around half of his donations from out of state. Both candidates drew a lot of support from Washington and the surrounding areas. Slotkin was especially popular in the ZIP code around Langley, Virginia, home of the CIA headquarters.
Along with his FBI service, Rogers is a former member of Congress who chaired the House Intelligence Committee from 2011 to 2015 and sponsored the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a surveillance bill hated by civil libertarians. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst who has put her intelligence experience front and center in her campaigns. In a particularly spooky moment in 2018, Slotkin was being followed to her car and questioned by a rival campaign operative. Smirking, Slotkin asked the operative how “Sloan and Leroy” were. “How do you know my dogs’ names?” the operative gasped, as Slotkin slammed her car door.
Interestingly, both candidates had positioned themselves as doves in the past, calling for restraints on the president’s war powers. But this year, as Democrats and Republicans have been in a competition to out-hawk each other, Rogers and Slotkin became enthusiastic supporters of U.S. proxy wars around the world. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that two intelligence veterans would be more eager for indirect meddling than direct military conflict.
Rogers previously argued Congress should have voted on the war against the Islamic State. “It’s wrong that Congress has not authorized military force when we know the president is doing it and Congress is funding them doing it. I think it’s wrong. I think it’s, candidly, one of the weakest points of our national security strategy,” he said in 2016, shortly after leaving office. “It’s a vote that has to happen if you’re going to ask th
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