The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee mocked the White House as “clearly scared and nervous” as it issued an “embarrassing” warning that investigations into Republicans could stray into criminal behavior, Punchbowl News reported Thursday.
“I did expect a really aggressive posture from them. I’m not surprised,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) told Punchbowl News. “It’s just kind of embarrassing for them to put something out with no actual legal basis.”
Garcia has vowed to prioritize four lines of investigation once he takes the gavel in January — Trump family corruption, corporate corruption, the Jeffrey Epstein case and abuses at the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This week, Garcia, who’s poised to become the chair of the Oversight Committee — the House’s chief investigatory panel — received a letter from White House counsel William Scharf warning him and his Democratic colleagues that any probes into President Donald Trump, Trump’s family and his administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality” that could warrant prosecution.
While the letter was widely mocked by legal experts, it failed to act as a deterrent for Garcia and “only further motivated him to dig into the administration,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.
“The idea that we’re somehow going to cower away from investigative work? I don’t know what they’re thinking because it’s certainly not something that I do,” Garcia said. “If anything, it just continues to embolden us to do the right thing.”
Garcia continued, “It doesn’t change our posture, but I think it shows that the White House is clearly scared and nervous.”
Garcia told Punchbowl News that he’d consulted with lawyers who said: “They can’t even believe a White House lawyer would put that out.” He also vowed that he and his Democratic colleagues would remain undeterred.
“We’re going to move forward,” Garcia said. “Our investigations are active. We’re going to have a lot of work to do between now and in January, and that will continue.”
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