House Judiciary Committee Democrats began hiring investigators a day after their party flipped more than two dozen seats to take control of the House.
The committee’s Democratic staff is seeking counsels and professional staff members for “policy, oversight, investigative, and legislative work” in the next Congress, which begins in January, according to its website. The posting says experience conducting investigations is valued for oversight jobs.
“Didn’t take long,” Scott MacFarlane, MeidasTouch’s chief Washington correspondent, wrote on X Wednesday, adding that committee Democrats were hiring investigators “as they gear up to launch probes of Trump 2.0.”
Committee Democrats have no subpoena power in the minority, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the panel’s top Democrat, said his earlier inquiries into Middle East envoy Jared Kushner went unanswered, MS NOW reported last week.
Raskin is expected to chair the committee in January, and chairs control subpoenas in most cases, according to a client alert from the law firm Jenner & Block. The investigators hired now could then pursue those unanswered questions with subpoenas to back them up.
Several of the probes Raskin has signaled rest on the same accusation that favors from President Donald Trump’s government have been bought.
“They’ve basically converted the president’s pardon power into a for-profit industry,” Raskin said in September after CBS News aired hidden-camera video of brokers offering to lobby Trump for pardons in exchange for fees.
White House Counsel Will Scharf has said Trump performs his duties ethically, CBS reported. In a letter last week, Raskin accused Trump of “profound corruption” in granting tariff exemptions and asked for donor records by a deadline this month, while a White House official told the network that only the best interest of Americans guides the administration.
Raskin has also demanded that Kushner stop negotiating for the United States until he turns over records of foreign payments, citing a Vanity Fair report that Saudi and Emirati leaders put billions into accounts he could access. Kushner wrote that the allegations “are completely insane and never happened.”
Any impeachment of Trump or his Cabinet would also come before the committee these hires will staff, since articles of impeachment are normally sent there.
Raskin has told Punchbowl News that impeachment is a tool.
Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) filed six articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in April over his handling of the Iran war and his leadership, CBS News reported. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said then that Hegseth “is doing an outstanding job leading the Pentagon.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) filed eight articles of his own in September. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told Time this week that he now supports impeaching Trump and is inclined to back proceedings against Hegseth.
The Pentagon called an inspector general’s finding that Hegseth jeopardized troop safety and broke department policy a “total exoneration.”
Committee Democrats ran a similar search after winning the House in 2018, when a posting sought lawyers with experience that included oversight work, Newsweek reported at the time.
After that win, the first Trump administration refused to send officials to testify, withheld documents and ignored subpoenas. Democratic leaders expect the same this time, saying the administration will likely go to court often and largely ignore their document requests, according to an alert from Jenner & Block last month.
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