How Democrats plan to rein in Trump should they win in November
WASHINGTON — Democrats seeking to retake control of Congress are planning broad investigations into President Trump and his family’s business dealings as part of an agenda focused on alleged corruption and economic harm, while keeping impeachment an option rather than an immediate priority.
The strategy would use subpoenas, committee hearings, possible criminal referrals and the budget as leverage to examine whether Trump, his family and close associates have used the federal government and public contracts for personal or financial gain.
House Democrats in key leadership posts told The Times the groundwork is already being laid out for probes into the president’s reported $2.2 billion in gains last year, the business ventures of his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his sons Eric and Don Jr., and the family’s crypto projects. There is also interest in scrutinizing Trump’s pardons and commutations to allies and the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
With less than three months before the midterm elections, the prospect of sweeping investigations has hung over Trump as his approval ratings hit new lows and Democrats gain momentum. But the White House has dismissed Democrats’ plans as partisan and unfounded.
“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re‑elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.”
Asked about the possibility of being impeached for a third time and being investigated, Trump told Punchbowl News last week that it would be “very unfair,” in part because “a lot of people are saying I am one of the greatest presidents ever.”
For Democrats, impeachment remains an option, but they are reluctant to make it a centerpiece of their agenda this time around. They argued the process could distract from oversight that would address alleged corruption and the ways it is hurting Americans economically.
“We shouldn’t take off the table that he can be impeached again,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in an interview. “But I think right now we’ve got to stop the Trump harm and investigate those who are helping him.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which plays a key role in the impeachment process, has also paused at making impeachment a priority. The Maryland lawmaker argued that Trump is “very eager” for Democrats to impeach him so he can mobilize his political base.
“We’re not going to play into the game,” Raskin told MS NOW’s “The Weekend” on Sunday.
In a statement to The Times, Raskin said the priority would be in expanding ongoing investigations into Trump’s pardons, what he called the “weaponization of the Department of Justice against chosen enemies in the nonprofit world,” “rampant violations of the foreign emoluments clause,” and the “theft and waste of public resources by Trump and his Cabinet of corruption.”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led the investigation that resulted in Trump’s first impeachment, said he is keeping his “mind open” on whether another impeachment would make sense for Democrats a third time. He argued the “power of the purse” — or using the budget to take aim at Trump’s agenda — would be a more effective tool.
“We’re going to need to do a lot of oversight of this administration, and I think it will be important in doing that oversight to always bring it back to why people should care about it and how the corruption of this regime is really raising their costs,” Schiff said.
Other Democrats are equally wary about using their renewed power to launch a third impeachment trial against Trump.
“We all know that this man has already been impeached twice. … I don’t know that we have to go to that well a third time,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) said.
Probes trickle down
Beyond the president’s business dealings, rank-and-file Democrats are coordinating other efforts to target Trump administration officials and senior aides over policy decisions they argue should force them out of their jobs.
Last week, Kamlager-Dove introduced articles of impeachment against Russell Vought, the White House budget director, arguing that he broke the law when the administration canceled federal funding to Democratic states including California for political reasons.
While she is cautious about impeaching Trump for a third time, she believes it would be effective to “remove Trump’s reapers who are willfully breaking the law.”
“I’m coordinating with leadership so that we have the best path forward for this,” she said. “It’s about being unified. It’s about working in a coordinated fashion, and it’s about understanding the end goal.”
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, said there needs to be more scrutiny over the White House’s budget-cutting team, the Department of Government Efficiency. Democrats should inquire more, he said, into allegations that a former DOGE official copied the Social Security numbers, names and personal information of millions of Americans to a private cloud that lacked adequate security.
He said the public still does not know enough about the situation or whether the data is secure or if it was breached, and said lawmakers should examine whether any laws or policies were violated.
“If there was political motivation to access and put at risk the Social Security numbers and the personal information of every single American, that sounds pretty criminal to me,” Walkinshaw said.
In May, three Democrats — Reps. Mike Levin of California, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Jason Crow of Colorado — launched the End Corruption Caucus, creating another vehicle for oversight ideas should Democrats take control of the House.
The push and pull
As Democrats prepare for investigations, there are already questions about the type of resistance that could come from Trump and administration officials, all of whom have shown a willingness to buck Congress.
In a sign of what could be a potential hurdle, the Department of Justice issued a memo Monday evening that says communications between Trump and advisors who do not work for his administration can be protected under executive privilege.
“Restricting executive privilege to purely intragovernmental communications would foreclose the President from relying on an array of important sources that he may find necessary to the effective discharge of his responsibilities of office,” the memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said.
The White House described the memo as a “narrow legal analysis, not an extension of executive privilege.”
But some Democrats see it as an example of how the Trump administration may be gearing up for Democratic-led investigations.
“This dubious expansion of executive privilege to cover Trump’s outside advisors is a clear attack on Congress’ oversight powers, and creates an environment ripe for corruption that protects only the president and his friends. We are ready to fight to uphold our power and authority,” Garcia said.
Walkinshaw added that he predicts the Trump administration is going to “flat-out refuse to engage with or respond to Democrats” if they take control.
If that happens, Democrats already expect to fight back.
“We have contempt tools, we have inherent contempt, we have criminal contempt,” he said. “We just have to be prepared to exercise the full extent of our constitutional tools, and I predict that will happen very early.”
