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Congressional Republicans could bank on an unorthodox investigative strategy if they lose the House this fall: relying on the threat of parallel probes by Trump’s administration to power the House minority’s congressional investigations next Congress.
It could amount to an unusual assertion of power from the House minority, which historically has almost no ability to enforce any of its own investigative requests.
“If the Democrats take the House in November, the Republican minority will be among the strongest in history because they likely will have the Trump administration backing them on core issues that they remain aligned on,” said James Mandolfo, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP who oversaw the House GOP’s investigation into then-President Joe Biden’s family.
“The reason this matters is because the Trump administration could take action against those companies/institutions that don’t comply with any requests from the minority.”
The Justice Department and House Oversight Republicans did not comment for this story.
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Without control of committee gavels — and the subpoena power that comes with them — legislative inquiries from the Hill minority generally rely on the voluntary compliance from their targets to produce documents or testimony. But if the Trump Justice Department takes an aggressive approach against corporations and institutions seen as running afoul of the administration’s priorities, Republicans’ investigative pursuits will actually have teeth.
Not responding to minority investigative requests for documents and testimony isn’t normally a crime without a subpoena compelling the action. While most House Republicans won’t publicly concede that they might lose the majority, some acknowledge that a friendly DOJ would be an ally by processing informal referrals from Congress.
“Congressional referrals seem to be germane, regardless,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., an Oversight Committee member. “Referrals are referrals, if there’s a criminal component.”
That means that potential investigative targets could face a minefield next year if Democrats win control of Congress. Democrats have signaled they are willing to go after private-sector targets if they win in November, especially those seen as cozying up to the Trump administration. The added threat of Republican investigations would widen that pool.
Still, there’s no guarantee that congressional Republicans and the Trump administration will be completely aligned. There was friction between some Oversight Committee Republicans and the Justice Department earlier this Congress, after the GOP-controlled panel voted to subpoena then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.