Democratic Congress to expand oversight of Trump Administration

A California congressman is warning Trump administration officials to lawyer up. Now, the Democrats have taken control of Congress. Long Beach Representative Robert Garcia is set to lead the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a press conference, Garcia said he plans to focus on four areas. They include the Trump family's lucrative business deals. Corporate corruption, the Epstein files, and ICE abuses during immigration sweeps. More on the new oversight powers Democrats will hold when they take over the House of Representatives. We welcome Matthew Green, interim chair of the politics department of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Matthew. Thanks for having me. All right, so let's kick things off here. What kind of power does a political party gain when they do take control of the House? Well, they get power to do a lot of things, but in terms of investigating the executive branch, Congress has the subpoena power. So they have broad power to compel witnesses to testify, to request documents from executive agencies. And this is something that, as you were just describing, the Democrats are quite eager to exercise in the upcoming Congress. So, you know, first of all, in terms of, you know, what this could mean for certain people that are in power, we hear Congressman Garcia has already tweeted lawyer up, which the Trump administration officials could end up being hauled in front of this committee. What could that mean for anyone who's hauled in front of this committee? Well, I mean, for starters, it's certainly an inconvenience to have to put down all your work and prepare for testifying before a committee and facing potentially hostile questions. But also, it is a way for, more importantly, for Congress to get information. It's not just about putting folks in a corner, but trying to learn about what's happening in the executive branch. It's one of the most important tasks of Congress, oversight. And so I think these hearings could be a way. For Congress to learn more about how the Trump White House has been operating and some of the stories we've heard about questionable activities or malfeasance in the executive branch. Speak, okay. Separate from the Trump administration and family business, the links that some people have drawn there, there is also the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the launch of this war in Iran and some of the. Behind the scenes issues and drama that some have reported and there is even talk that he might even resign before it gets up to it. But is this something looking into what he's been doing with the Department of Defense would be something under the purview of the House? Absolutely. That's one of the things that falls into the general oversight responsibilities of Congress is to look in to the decisions that are made by cabinet officials, by the president, by White House officials, ask why those decisions were made, what information they had and going into those decisions. Obviously, there's going to be some political posturing that happens in these. But again, it's a very valuable tool at Congress's disposal to learn about, for example. Why did we go to war in Iran? How is the war being conducted? I think it's a good time to start to get started. We are going to get started in about 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Questions about whether it was conducted properly and so forth. 10 minutes. Okay, so we will go ahead and get started. There's also questions, or there have also been questions about, you know, whether... The exact toll it's taken on the U.S. military has been explained to the general public. But my question to you about this is, when they do mine for that information, the House and Congress mines for that information with someone within the Department of Defense like Pete Hegseth, what can they do with that information that they glean? I mean, can they get him in trouble some way or no? Well, of course, if there's malfeasance or poor decision-making in the executive branch, these hearings can put a spotlight on that. They can certainly embarrass the witnesses. Sometimes members of the executive branch do resign rather than having to face hostile questioning or after they face hostile questioning. So there's certainly a political side to it. But I think also it is just gathering information. And with that, Congress can... For example, decide, well, for our next defense bill, we're going to put in language that deals with mistakes that were made, or we're going to fund the defense department because they have, they're running low on munitions and they need more support from us. So those are some of the things that could come from these kinds of hearings. Matthew, we just have a few seconds left here, but Republicans still have control of Congress for another few weeks. Could anything change in that time? Uh, there's not, I mean, there will be what we call a lame duck session. Congress will almost certainly come back and deal with some things that they couldn't pass. I wouldn't expect anything dramatic, though, particularly with an election of this size, which members of Congress interpret as a clear rebuke of the GOP. Yeah. All right. Matthew Green from the Catholic University of America. Thanks for joining us and providing your insight into this. The story, of course, is going to be continuing in the weeks and months and years ahead. We appreciate it.