As Democrats have grown more hopeful that they might win control of the U.S. Senate, congressional investigators have gathered regularly in a conference room in the office of Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who is on track to lead the body’s key oversight committee if they do. The team in recent months has assembled a list of people in President Trump’s orbit and administration whose actions are worthy of a probe, and they have brainstormed possible witnesses, drafted information requests, and gamed out how the administration might respond. Across the Hill, Representative Robert Garcia of California, a Democrat who could soon chair the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been preparing even longer. He told me he keeps a “running list of the most corrupt things that the Trump family has done” on a whiteboard in his home in Long Beach where senior staffers this week wrapped up several days of strategy meetings. “There’s a lot of ideas and possible investigations on there,” he said.
With the midterms just weeks away, an army of committee staffers has been quietly preparing to launch numerous investigations in the new year. When the 120th congressional session begins in January, Trump and his administration could suddenly find themselves under the type of scrutiny they have thus far avoided. But there are significant risks and limits to Democrats’ congressional powers—and divisions could quickly emerge over the number and intensity of investigations, especially if their majority is a thin one.
During Trump’s first term, Democrats heavily invested in trying to impeach the president on two occasions, animating their base but taking them away from work on issues of broader interest to more Americans. But the biggest hurdle is likely the president himself: Trump is widely expected to be more dismissive of congressional oversight than any president in history, ignoring requests, resisting subpoenas in ways that give Democrats little recourse, or issuing broad pardons to insulate those close to him. If Democrats attempted to hold someone in criminal contempt of Congress, the matter would be referred to a Department of Justice that Trump has controlled completely.
All of these considerations leave Democrats certain that they are going to scrutinize Trump like never before, but deeply uncertain about how it will go. “I don’t think I’d call it retribution. I’d call it a reckoning,” Representative Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon told me. “I don’t look at it like, We’re going to get back at you. We’re going to hold you accountable.”
House Democrats have had a stronger expectation of winning the majority than their colleagues in the Senate, which has given them a head start in organizing their strategy. Senators have largely coordinated with their House counterparts—a task that has proved tricky in the past, and led to turf wars over who gets the political spotlight. But in recent weeks, with Democrats sensing an opportunity to claim the Senate majority, efforts have increased on that side of the Capitol as well. “We have to work quickly,” one Democratic aide told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private preparations. “Everyone realizes the pressure to work fast.” On the Senate Finance Committee, eight staffers have been tasked with different subject areas and have weekly meetings to talk about investigative options, Senate aides told me. Over the next few weeks, they are aiming to compile reports on their options if Democrats gain the majority.
Ask any Democratic incumbent or candidate to name their top investigative target, and they’ll likely give you five answers—or more. There are broad buckets: alleged Trump-family corruption, immigration enforcement, the war in Iran, and Washington construction projects. But there also are alleged payments for pardons, allegations that U.S. attorneys are misleading judges and grand juries, Venezuelan oil contracts, and questions about Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding party to look into.
[Read: Don Jr.’s wedding trap]
The Democratic base is eager to see Trump held accountable for his actions, and many members have a voracious appetite to get going. “Every single committee we have needs to be extremely aggressive in their areas of jurisdiction,” Representative Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, a Democrat who represents the Phoenix area, told me. “People want to see investigations, prosecutions. They want to see people in jail.” (Although Congress can’t put someone in jail, it can bring potential crimes to light.) She sees the need for a range of investigations—including subpoenaing Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son, to ask about his reported ties to Andrew Tate, who has been indicted in Romania on charges of trafficking minors—and she doesn’t see a problem with launching numerous investigations. Trump has no issues “running everywhere at once,” she reasons, so why should Democrats?
But members in more moderate districts have been less outspoken, and have placed more of an emphasis on the economic issues voters say they care most about. In a survey of likely voters last month in the 37 districts that the Cook Political Report rated at the time as competitive (the number has now grown to 43), only 21 percent said they wanted a candidate who would be a check on Trump, 35 percent said they wanted someone to work with him, and 43 percent said they wanted someone who would focus on changing the political system overall. Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, a Democrat, was one of the seven impeachment managers during Trump’s first trial, and the lessons he drew from it are still fresh. Impeachment is one tool, he told me, but he also thinks the party needs to be strategic and focused about how it flexes its investigative muscles. “We’re going to be methodical about it; we’re going to be intentional about it,” Crow said. “We can’t do everything at once.”
Garcia, who might soon chair the House’s key oversight committee, acknowledged how tricky it will be for Democrats to map out where to focus their energies and how to keep the party united. “We’re working on that broader strategy and cadence right now,” he told me.
Almost immediately, Garcia said, Democrats plan to take actions related to allegations of the Trump family’s corruption and profiteering and to the administration’s handling of federal investigative records related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are also calls for impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the unauthorized war in Iran, boat strikes in the Caribbean, and the mishandling of sensitive information. Democrats also hope to investigate allegations that Corey Lewandowski solicited financial kickbacks in exchange for government contracts while working as a special government employee for the Department of Homeland Security. Garcia said they could attempt to call Trump himself to testify, but they lack strong legal means to force him to do so if he doesn’t comply. They plan to call White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, and others. “They’re going to push back really hard on a lot of this,” Garcia told me, “and I think we’ve got to be creative and aggressive, and use public opinion, and push where we can.”
[Read: The ‘crazy’ plot to release the Epstein files]
Democratic leaders expect that the Trump administration will be highly litigious on requests for data and documents, and they are trying to come up with ways to instead get that information from third parties. This might mean subpoenaing contractors instead of the White House, or seeking records from banks rather than the Treasury Department.
It also means being targeted and specific in their requests, and building on information they have already gathered. Some House Democrats have collected video footage, for example, of ICE officers and potential abuse of immigrants that they want to further examine.
If Democrats gain control, they also plan to discontinue some past bipartisan practices that could stall investigations. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, should he take over as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, would drop the practice of issuing subpoenas only if the chair and ranking member agree to do so, and would instead put such decisions up for a majority vote. “We’re planning to be much more aggressive than we have been in the past,” the Democratic aide told me.
Four years ago, top advisers to President Biden anticipated that Republicans would win control of the House and attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and put Hunter Biden under significant scrutiny. They spent months in strategy meetings in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, and hired communications advisers and white-collar attorneys. The Trump administration doesn’t yet appear to be making similar preparations. White House Counsel Will Scharf, who would have to oversee much of the Trump administration’s response, did not reply to my message seeking comment. Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, said the president “is focused on retaining Republican majorities in Congress.”
[Read: The watchdogs are barking themselves hoarse]
Republicans have tried to cast Democrats as drunk on impeachment, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise warned at the Republican convention earlier in September: “The first thing they’ll do is impeach President Trump and his Cabinet.” There are a few calls for impeachment—including from Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, the state’s Democratic nominee for Senate—but most Democrats are hesitant to call for impeaching Trump for a third time. Trump won’t be able to seek another term, and there’s a recognition that the Senate likely would not convict him. “Donald Trump is not fit to be president,” Crow told me. “But did impeachment achieve our goal? It did not. Could it in the future? Maybe. Maybe. We need conditions for that.”
Impeaching Cabinet members, though, may be a different matter. House Democrats have already filed legislation attempting to impeach Hegseth, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. There were also efforts to impeach Pam Bondi when she was leading the Department of Justice and Kristi Noem during her time at the Department of Homeland Security. At the top of Crow’s list: Hegseth, for purging the top ranks of the military, misuse of classified systems, and his role in the controversial agreement that has given the Pentagon a stake in a major private Venezuelan oil firm.
As Trump becomes a deeply unpopular lame-duck president, signs are emerging that some in his party may stop acceding to his demands and begin distancing themselves from him. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican who has a contentious relationship with Trump and lost his primary earlier this year, filed articles of impeachment on Hegseth last month that caused the House to break for recess to avoid a contentious vote. Senator John Curtis of Utah, a Republican, recently called for more scrutiny of the Trump family, citing its crypto deals, real-estate transactions, and the recent wedding party. “These reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment,” he wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Trump Organization did not respond to my questions about how and whether it, or the president’s family, is preparing for investigations. An ally of Donald Trump Jr., who is likely to be investigated for allowing a Russian oligarch to finance a party after his wedding ceremony, said that Trump Jr. would be ready for the scrutiny and pointed to his congressional testimony during Trump’s first term. “Nothing Democrats do next year is going to shake him,” the ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly, told me. “Don is ready for what’s coming.”
Democrats are working furiously to try to make sure they, too, are ready for what could be coming.
Marie-Rose Sheinerman and Madison Hahamy contributed to this report.
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