White House Tells Democrats That Investigating the Trump Administration Could Be Criminal — Incoming Oversight Chair Robert Garcia Says Congress Will Not Be Deterred

WASHINGTON — The fight over the next Congress's investigations has started before the new Congress is even seated. The White House has warned the Democrat set to lead the House Oversight Committee that investigations targeting the Trump administration could be considered criminal and themselves worthy of investigation, Reuters reported. In a letter sent Monday to the incoming chairman, Representative Robert Garcia, White House counsel Will Scharf said the administration is “monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators,” and that threats to officials may be deemed criminal.

“Threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality. And issuing unlawful subpoenas with the intention of depriving citizens of their constitutional rights and privileges may warrant further investigation,” the letter said, as quoted by Reuters. Scharf wrote that members of the new Congress had shown “a clear intent to transgress” the Constitution's limits on congressional investigations and subpoenas, pointing to a Democrat's comment that subpoenas would be handed out like “candy” and to Garcia's election-night post on X saying “LAWYER UP.” The comments, Scharf wrote, “make it abundantly clear that any forthcoming investigative processes will be deployed to harass and aggrandize, rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end.”

The backdrop is last week's midterm defeat: Republicans lost majorities in both houses of Congress, and a Democratic-controlled Congress will take power in January for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency. Party leaders have promised to probe the actions of the president, his family, aides and advisers and to hold them accountable — the program the White House letter is aimed at before it begins. Reuters also reported that Trump ordered the Justice Department on Saturday to look into Democrats for “threatening a lot of people” with impeachment and other forms of punishment, saying in a social-media post that their actions amount to a “criminal act,” without providing evidence.

Garcia answered on Wednesday, and he did not soften. Responding to Scharf's letter, he said the committee would continue its work despite threats from the administration. “It appears Donald Trump has something to hide,” Garcia said in a statement posted on the House Oversight Democrats' X page, as reported by Reuters. “The Trump Administration continues to weaponize the government with threats of unconstitutional attacks on Congress. We are a co-equal branch of government and will not be deterred by baseless threats from a weaponized DOJ or from the President's lawyers.” For Metroplex readers, the standoff is the January calendar in one exchange: a new Congress promising subpoenas, a White House promising to treat the subpoenas themselves as the offense, and the courts the likely next venue for a separation-of-powers fight that both sides have now put in writing.