Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, is no stranger to media appearances. But he still seemed nervous earlier this month as he got ready to be grilled in a Manhattan television studio.
Brimming with restless energy, Mr. Garcia paced around a brightly decorated green room in SoHo, whose tropical-print wallpaper and velvet couch were a far cry from the comparatively drab décor of Capitol Hill offices. He reviewed quotes on a notecard in his hands, discussed material he’d researched extensively and conferred with his staff over which member of Congress he might need to mention on air.
Shortly before showtime, the door opened, and his interlocutor for the evening walked in: Andy Cohen, the producer-turned-media-personality whose rollicking nightly talk show “Watch What Happens Live” has not traditionally been a stop for elected officials.
The cameras were not yet rolling, but after exchanging greetings, Mr. Cohen focused on Mr. Garcia and cut to the point.
“So, have you seen the Epstein files?” Mr. Cohen asked.
As with most members of the public, Mr. Garcia had not. But when Mr. Cohen later asked him again, this time in front of a small studio audience and Kyle Richards, a veteran of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” the congressman offered a television-style teaser.
“I have read enough,” he told Mr. Cohen, Ms. Richards and hundreds of thousands of television viewers. “And I know that there’s a lot more coming.”
Younger than many of his colleagues, gay and fluent in both politics and pop culture, Mr. Garcia, 48, is the rare Democrat who seems equally comfortable holding forth on Bravo as he is talking policy on cable television or left-leaning podcasts.
And as he has settled in over the last six months as the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, the House’s main investigative panel, he has focused intently on how his party can more effectively reach the public and pressure Republicans and the Trump administration.
“This idea of just, like, sending strongly worded letters and hoping that people catch that? That’s over,” Mr. Garcia said.
That is how he landed on a talk-show set where, Mr. Cohen wryly noted, “It’s not every day a sitting congressman comes through here.”
Mr. Garcia, a former mayor of Long Beach, Calif., has been in Congress for fewer than three years. He has been the ranking member on the oversight panel for just shy of six months. But if Democrats take back the House, he would be positioned to lead their efforts to investigate the Trump administration.
And already, despite his relative congressional inexperience, no subpoena power and scant opportunity to set the committee’s agenda, Mr. Garcia has made a mark. He successfully pushed for the release of material tied to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier and convicted sex offender, creating headlines that President Trump and congressional Republicans had toiled to avoid.
Under Mr. Garcia’s leadership, Democrats used a procedural gambit in a subcommittee meeting over the summer to pressure a group of Republicans into siding with them and forcing the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, to subpoena the Justice Department.
That maneuver kicked off a sprawling investigation that has produced striking revelations about Mr. Epstein and his links to powerful figures, including Mr. Trump.
As thousands of documents have rolled in, many of them from Mr. Epstein’s estate, Mr. Garcia and his team have moved quickly to highlight details calculated to put Republicans on the defensive. Some of the releases have been lacking in context and added little to the public’s understanding of Mr. Epstein and the people around him.
But they have kept the story in the public eye and intensified pressure on the Department of Justice to release its investigative files in the case — a step that is required by law by Friday.
Democrats first released a note and sexually suggestive drawing with what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s signature in a birthday book for Mr. Epstein, a drawing that Mr. Trump has insisted he did not create. Months later, they sorted through a trove of Mr. Epstein’s emails to release three in which he mentioned Mr. Trump, further stoking a debate over the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.
That aggressive approach has won him derision from Republicans who accuse him of trafficking in innuendo aimed at smearing Mr. Trump. But it has thrilled Democrats, who say Mr. Garcia has risen to the political moment.
“Garcia hit the ground running,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who once held Mr. Garcia’s role on the Oversight Committee. “And they have been absolutely on offense from the start.”
In interviews, Mr. Garcia said that his committee was focused on investigative work, including looking at abuses by federal immigration officials, corruption within the Trump administration and the Epstein investigation.
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His penchant for attention-grabbing has rankled some Republicans. Mr. Comer once accused Mr. Garcia of being a “drama queen,” and in a statement, he said that Mr. Garcia’s “stint at the Oversight Committee has been all show and no substance.”
The White House has accused Mr. Garcia of selectively releasing documents to push a false narrative tying Mr. Epstein to Mr. Trump and ignoring a host of left-leaning figures whose names also appear in Mr. Epstein’s files.
“Representative Garcia should focus on producing real results instead of manufacturing cheap headlines and rushing to appear on Bravo,” Mr. Comer said.
But for Mr. Garcia, a former communications professor, his appearance on “Watch What Happens Live” was part of a project to broaden the reach of a Democratic Party that has struggled to connect with supporters.
“We have to get attention,” Mr. Garcia said. “And then when we have people’s attention, we’re going to drive our policy and our point across. And so I’m never going to apologize for that. I actually think we should do more of it.”
And at a time when the president is a former reality television star and members of Congress are increasingly turning to the tactics of unscripted dramas — seeking to land pithy sound bites and orchestrate dramatic, made-for-camera confrontations — Mr. Garcia’s study of the medium may have made him an adept messenger for his caucus.
Among his splashier moments as a rank-and-file lawmaker came during a hearing in 2024, when he quoted a then-viral monologue from “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” as he accused the Trump administration of corruption.
“I had so many people that didn’t follow politics reach out to me and talk about that,” Mr. Garcia said.
Born in Peru, Mr. Garcia came to the United States with his mother in the early 1980s. The two stayed in the country after their visas expired, and Mr. Garcia’s mother worked a number of low-wage jobs to support them.
As a child, Mr. Garcia learned English in part by flipping through comic books, which he credits for his understanding of how political values and pop culture intertwine. Framed drawings of Superman hang on the walls of his office in Washington.
“I’ve always viewed a lot of the world through the lens of, like, the heroes I grew up reading about,” Mr. Garcia said.
When Mr. Garcia was in college, President Ronald Reagan signed a landmark immigration bill that gave him a path to citizenship. So when Mr. Garcia first registered to vote and became politically active, he registered as a Republican, because his family at the time “equated being Republican with citizenship and opportunity.”
But Mr. Garcia’s politics shifted, he said, as he became more politically aware. As a gay man and a Latino immigrant, he described feeling out of place in a changing Republican Party. Near the 2008 presidential election, he said, he found his politics more aligned with Barack Obama and became a Democrat.
It was roughly that time that Mr. Garcia, a co-owner of a local news website, decided to enter politics. He won election to the Long Beach City Council in 2009. Five years later, at 36, he became the city’s youngest and first openly gay mayor. He was elected to a second term in 2018.
That experience would prove valuable for his time in Congress, he said. As mayor, Mr. Garcia said, “you have to work with everyone to get stuff done, but you shouldn’t compromise your own values and your own fight.”
Republicans who have worked with Mr. Garcia in Congress said in interviews that he carried that spirit into committee work.
“I vehemently disagree with him on most things,” said Representative Anna Paulina Luna, the hard-right Florida Republican who with Mr. Garcia led a task force on declassifying federal secrets. “But I had no issues working with him.”
Mr. Garcia’s Democratic colleagues also credited his mayoral experience for his rise in a caucus that has long held to an unofficial seniority system when awarding leadership roles.
Mr. Garcia ran for his seat in 2022, when the Democrat who held it decided to retire. When he arrived, he was selected without opposition as Democrats’ freshman class president. Two years later, he again ran unopposed for a leadership position to represent less experienced House members.
Mr. Garcia’s election for his current role on the Oversight Committee was more hotly contested: He was one of four candidates, and his selection was not a foregone conclusion.
The position became available in May after Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia died of cancer. Mr. Garcia said he was drawn to the position not just as a platform to fight against Mr. Trump, but also because he wanted to help “bring new voices” into House Democratic leadership.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the former House speaker, said his mayoral experience helped push the state delegation to unanimously back Mr. Garcia.
“He’s clear in his thinking,” Ms. Pelosi said. “He’s visionary in his values, in terms of what he came here to do. And he’s well liked by the members and has a personality that goes with the mission.”
Mr. Garcia also argued that he was well-suited to bridge a gap between older, more traditional Democrats and newer members who favored a more brash, confrontational approach.
“Robert is leading a group of young, progressive Democrats who have been fighting their whole political careers,” Mr. Raskin, 63, said. “These are not dyed-in-the-wool Washington careerists.”
Should Democrats win control of the House in next year’s elections, Mr. Garcia would be in line to lead his party’s investigative efforts in just his third congressional term.
Though Mr. Garcia said he would aim to tackle the roles corporations play in driving up prices, he acknowledged that his role would be inherently partisan.
“The work of the committee is so critical to holding particularly the administration accountable,” Mr. Garcia said. “I take that pretty seriously, and it does weigh on me.”
Still, he said, he still marvels that he gets to do it at all.
“Oftentimes I think, like, I’m a poor immigrant kid,” he said. “No one in my family went to college. Then I became a citizen, and now I’m in Congress.”
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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