Posted Monday, September 23, 2019 12:27 pm

MONDAY, Sept. 23 — U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin said if recent accusations about President Donald Trump strong-arming the Ukrainian president to investigate potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden are true, "We're in a new era" and "Congress should exercise its full authority on those issues."

When asked if she'd favor impeachment if the information on Trump is verified as accurate, Slotkin responded, "Congress should exercise its full authority on those issues. I'd consider a whole range of options."

"As a national security professional, if these allegations are correct that the President basically bribed a foreign country to get dirt on one of his opponents, that's a serious problem," she said.

Slotkin, the Lansing-area's moderate and pragmatic Congresswoman, has shied away from jumping on the "Impeach Trump" bandwagon, likely in deference to her politically split district.

When asked in June about impeachment, she said, "It's just incredibly important to be judicious about it. Impeachment is not a legal process — it's a political process. First, you've got to bring the public along. You've got to know that from the last couple of times people have gone through an impeachment process."

On Sunday, The New York Times reported Trump acknowledged that in speaking with Ukraine's president, he accused the former vice president of corruption tied to his son Hunter's business activities in that former Soviet republic.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times during the July 25 phone call to work with the president's lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, on an investigation of Biden and his son. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has held up $250 million in security aid to the country. Also, Congress is now learning that a U.S. intelligence official filed a whistleblower complaint about a Trump conversation with Zelensky.

Slotkin is a former CIA agent and national intelligence official and has been talking with her national security piers in Congress about the matter.

"To me, this just smells and feels differently," she said today while talking to reporters at the UAW strike at General Motors Grand River Assembly plant. "That is a really striking allegation, and if that's true, we're in a different moment. As a national security professional, as a former CIA officer, that kind of thing goes so beyond the pale of what is acceptable for our own national security.

"I know we have the director of national intelligence coming up on Thursday to the Hill. To me, that is a very important moment. If he does not provide information on this whistleblower case, as he's required to by law, I think we're in a new moment where the Congress should exercise its full authority on those issues," she said.