What Democrats can do with subpoena power.
Schiff said he’ll look at the work being done by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and figure out where the gaps might be. “One that I would put as very important is the issue of whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization,” he said.
If Democrats prevail in November, his committee won’t be the only one examining Trump’s finances. Under a rarely used 1924 law passed after the Teapot Dome scandal, leaders of three congressional committees —
- the House Ways and Means Committee, the
- Senate Finance Committee and the
- Joint Committee on Taxation
— can each demand to see the president’s tax returns.
.. “We are in a fight for the soul of our democracy,” he said. “So I understand that for me to effectively do that second lane that I just talked about — voting rights and all those good things, prescription drugs — I need to have the democracy intact.”
The Trump administration, he said, needs to be exposed, which might mean hearings into the way Trump is profiting off the presidency, or on abuses of the security clearance process. “What we’re going to have to do is try to create a new but appropriate sense of what is normal,”
Trump’s worst political nightmare? Democrats with subpoena power
While some Democrats have pressed for Trump’s impeachment, what would be certain is that Democratic committee chairs would swamp Trump and his deputies with subpoenas, document requests and public hearings that would bog down his administration and distract from his agenda ahead of the 2020 elections.
Already, congressional Democrats have amassed dozens of oversight requests targeting the White House, various Cabinet departments and private entities with business ties to Trump and his family.
.. Some outside Trump advisers have mused in recent days that losing the House would be a political disaster but saw a silver lining in the possibility that Democrats would veer left next year and be a foil for Trump
.. “There is a never-ending stream of outrage,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican political consultant who served in the final three years of the Bush White House. “The only difference is, now all of their outrage is directed at Twitter. But when you give somebody a gavel, they can actually hurt you.”
.. Their mission would be to stop the EPA or any other regulatory agency from just functioning, basically, until they can regain power.”
.. it was difficult not to contemplate the possibilities that would come with not only subpoena power, but also a much larger staff and investigative budget.
.. Since Trump took office, Oversight Committee Republicans have blocked more than 50 Democratic subpoena requests ranging from
- documents pertaining to the administration’s health-care policies to
- information on the government’s use of chartered airplanes to
- a demand for testimony from former Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon.
.. would also scrutinize policy issues such as
- prescription drug prices,
- postal reform and
- preparations for the 2020 Census.
.. Unlike the partisan congressional probes into Bush and Obama, which focused mainly on alleged missteps by subordinates, Democrats are primed to put the president himself in the investigative crosshairs
.. For one, Democrats would be able to inspect Trump’s federal income tax returns for the first time — a trove that they have long demanded but Republicans have shown no interest in obtaining. Under federal law, any tax return can be examined by the chairman of any of the three congressional tax committees.
.. Other information regarding Trump’s personal finances and business dealings could also be subject to Democrats’ prying eyes. They could include rosters of hotel clients and members of Trump golf and social clubs, as well as details of real estate deals that his companies have participated in.
.. requests for information on the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, as well as Trump’s controversial border policies.
Four Democratic senators on Thursday requested a Pentagon investigation into whether the White House improperly offered tours of Air Force One to members of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.