The people who cut federal jobs and ran the immigration crackdown should expect letters, hearings and possibly subpoenas next year. That was the message from the Democrats who are about to run Congress, delivered on the Sunday television shows five days after their party won both the House and the Senate.
For readers, the fight matters beyond Washington. The new majority says it will spend its power examining the last two years of this administration, from mass firings to deportation raids to the cost of the Iran war, while voters who elected them are still asking Congress to lower prices. How much time goes to each job will shape the next two years.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, who is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, told CNN that investigations will focus on Elon Musk and his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, the office that fired federal workers last year. “I think there’s a lot of interest, not just from our committee, but from committees across the Congress to speak to Mr. Musk,” he said.
Garcia’s second named target is Stephen Miller, the immigration hardliner President Donald Trump named as White House chief of staff on Friday. Garcia called Miller the architect of a “horrific, unjust” immigration policy and said, “Stephen Miller is at the center of the major policy decisions that are happening in the administration, and so it does deserve oversight and investigation.” Asked whether Miller had broken a law, Garcia named none. He said Miller had been at the center of actions that were unconstitutional, unjust and possibly illegal, and that the committee would find out.
The list runs further. Garcia said members of the president’s family, including Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner, could “absolutely” be called to answer questions, and he named the president’s pardons, the donors paying for the White House ballroom, the operation that removed Venezuela’s leader and the Iran war as subjects. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is set to lead the Senate Banking Committee, warned companies on CBS that “if you’ve been making your profits by cheating American families and scamming your investors, you’d better get ready for some investigations, serious ones.” She named no company. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming speaker, said Democrats would back a Republican measure to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the Iran war. “Pete Hegseth has got to go,” he said.
None of this has started. Democrats hold no gavels and cannot issue a subpoena until the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. Two early steps are real: Garcia announced his bid for the chairmanship in a letter to colleagues on Thursday, and Senator Richard Blumenthal has written to ballroom donors and officials asking them to keep and hand over records. Everything else is a stated intention, and no finding of wrongdoing has been made against anyone named.
Attorney General Todd Blanche answered on CNN minutes before Garcia appeared. He called the talk “outright threats” and promised a defense. “If that’s what this new incoming leadership wants to do, we are ready,” he said. “If you work in this administration, you have a lawyer. It’s me.” Garcia replied in the next segment: “What Todd Blanche is doing right now is a threat. He is threatening our committee. He’s trying to stop us from doing real oversight.” The same weekend, the president ordered the Justice Department to look into Democrats, a step the department has not confirmed it has taken.
Transparency note: The Associated Press report on these appearances could not be opened at its original link and was read in syndicated republication. Every quote above was cross-checked against Reuters or a second outlet’s account of the same broadcasts. The corporate target names in some coverage come from a think tank paper, not from any lawmaker, and are not reported here as Democratic plans.
