Democratic investigations of the Trump administration are set to focus on the President’s family business dealings, corporate corruption, immigration enforcement and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, according to Robert Garcia, who will chair the House Oversight Committee in the next Congress.
Mr Garcia said the panel would also examine the actions of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He singled out administration officials including Stephen Miller, Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem, as well as members of the Trump family.
“I think folks that need to be concerned first are administration officials that have caused real harm. We’re going to investigate the abuses,” Mr Garcia told a news conference on Wednesday.
He acknowledged that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute people who refused to co-operate with congressional inquiries. However, he said House Democrats could take them to civil court.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer described the midterm elections as a “generational remake of the Senate map” and said the party’s immediate priority would be to respond to what he called a mandate from voters by “proving ourselves worthy of their trust”.
Mr Schumer said Democrats would act if President Trump defied voters or the law. “Whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire,” he said.
But Adam Hamilton, an incoming Democratic senator from Kansas, said he wanted the party to devote more attention to the cost of living and other issues than to investigations or impeachment proceedings.
“I do not want to spend the next two years in trials,” Mr Hamilton told CBS News.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the President was prepared to work with Democrats to deliver for Americans, but accused them of choosing to act against the public if they pursued what she called “sham investigations and radical left policies”.
