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Elijah Cummings, D-Md., In an archive photo from May 2017. Cummings should head the House's powerful oversight committee if Democrats come to the House next month.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
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Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Elijah Cummings, D-Md., In an archive photo from May 2017. Cummings should head the House's powerful oversight committee if Democrats come to the House next month.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images
This is one of the most important issues of the mid-term elections. Democrats promise to put the Trump administration under the microscope of surveillance investigations as they gain control of the House.
Aggressive surveillance would mark a brutal turnaround for Congress, where Republican leaders avoided for two years to avoid confronting President Trump. The GOP-led committees have refused to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by officials, as well as issues relating to possible Trump conflicts of interest.
"What we have seen is not just a period of time when your executive power broke standards, but also a congress that sat without consequences and that allowed that to happen without great responsibility. "said the former Congressional investigator, Justin. Rood. He is now working for the non-profit government oversight project, which trains Capitol Hill employees on surveillance.
Democrats say they would ask all House committees to conduct surveillance investigations. The four hottest questions:
- Trump's Personal Tax Returns – The President broke the tradition by refusing to release them. As a majority party, Democrats would have the power to demand return. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that returns would be "one of the first things we would do – it's the easiest thing in the world." In particular, Democrats want to know what kind of conflicts of interest present Trump's business interests, especially with foreign countries.
- Russia – Allegations that "the Russians could leverage the president" would be closely scrutinized by the intelligence committee, according to the representative Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Who is leading the panel.
- Indictment – Democrats could demand the dismissal of the president, perhaps as a result of charges resulting from the investigation of special advocate Robert Mueller, of conflicts of interest or of alleged violations of the provisions of the Constitution relating to emoluments against corruption. The House may dismiss a civil servant by a majority of votes. The conviction would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Pelosi opposes the impeachment.
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh – The Judicial Committee would consider whether the new Supreme Court Justice was truthful in his confirmation hearings before the Senate, said Representative Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
If the Democrats get the power to investigate, they will work in a very partisan atmosphere.
Marian Currinder, market researcher for the free market think tank, said investigators should resist the liberal pressure to "drag Trump and his administration down and through the mud". She said, "This is not going to help the newly elected Democrats who are trying to get into the program to get things done and help the workers.
One of the best investigators of the Congress of Democrats, former representative Henry Waxman, D-Calif., A veteran of the House for 40 years. He said monitoring should focus on three goals: ending waste of money, empowering people, and ensuring the government is doing the right thing.
"The most important thing in my mind about supervision, having been present when Republicans perceived the power of supervision as a simple way to promote their political interests, is simply not to do what they do. they did, "he said.
The main body of the House of Investigations is the Government Oversight and Reform Committee. His recent reputation is defined by the survey conducted by Republicans five years ago on the mismanagement by the IRS of tax-exempt applications.
At present, Elijah Cummings, D-Md., The Democratic's highest representative, is considering possible investigations. He said politico it would deal with "the problems our democracy is under attack, such as Trump's efforts to dismantle the CIA, suppress the right to vote, interfere with our freedom of the press and review the census, etc."
The Democrats of the Oversight Committee have followed their 64 motions – all rejected by the Republicans – seeking subpoenas directed against the administration. At a meeting of the same committee last month, Democrats attempted to obtain subpoenas, ranging from the separation policy of the families of the administration to the testimony of Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on the addition of a citizenship-related question to the census and the refusal of the White House to submit a mandated report. security clearances.
Even with the power of subpoena, Democrats could expect fights with the administration, which systematically seeks to retain the documents the committee wishes to see. But there is a workaround: the demands of the Freedom of Information Act from nonprofit groups of friends. Conservative watch groups have perfected the technique under the Obama administration.
"In reality, it's very difficult to have a subpoena appear in court," said Austin Evers, executive director of the progressive American Oversight group. "On the other hand, [with] a request for Freedom of Information Act, which we could table, we can very easily go to court and force the agencies to be transparent. "
But even the most energetic supervision would not have enough time and resources to address issues that go back further in the Trump administration and that Republicans have refused to consider. Rood, as part of the government's control project, predicts the danger of a "lost generation of problems" that are not important for the accounting of partisan scores, but for congressional understanding of the operation of the government. # 39; s executive.
Over the last two years, "I think that there are things that have happened and changes that have occurred," he said, "and they have not received the kind of examination and the kind of consideration of the Congress which, I think, explains why body exists in the first place ".
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