Democrats plan to ramp up investigations into Trump family, White House ballroom and Epstein if they win the House

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With two months until the midterm elections, Democrats are laying the groundwork to launch far-reaching investigations into the Trump administration and preparing for high-stakes court battles if they win control of the House of Representatives in November.

President Donald Trump ’s war with Iran, his White House ballroom project , his family’s business dealings and the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files will be among the top targets of investigations if Democrats take back the House, according to conversations with over a dozen Democratic lawmakers and aides.

Democrats don’t want to squander the opportunity to act as a check on Trump if they reclaim the majority and say they have learned a lot since the last time the party controlled the House while Trump was in office. Few say they are interested in launching an impeachment process on day one, and many instead are eyeing a new tool that would be at their disposal to try to quickly compel the testimony and documents they seek: lawsuits.

In the majority, Democrats would have the ability to sue the Trump administration in a more effective way since they have not had standing to do so in the minority. Whether it is compelling testimony from a top administration official, escalating a fight over obtaining documents or trying to halt the construction of Trump’s White House ballroom, Democrats plan to be strategic and aggressive about taking their fight to court.

“We’re going to use every tool in the toolbox and we will have certainly a lot more authority to get ourselves into court in the majority than we did when we were in the minority,” Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the powerful House Judiciary Committee, told CNN.

“We are not taking no for an answer in terms of getting the evidence we need,” Raskin said.

Raskin has already launched investigations into allegations of corrupt government contract deals at Donald Trump Jr. ’s venture capital firm and on the Trump administration’s pardon policy. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wants to interview the president and first lady as well as top officials like Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles about how the administration has handled the Epstein matter. Garcia also wants to interview Kushner and Trump family members about their business dealings.

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith plans to probe the Trump administration’s decision to go to war with Iran and US strikes on alleged drug boats atop the House Armed Services Committee. Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman is laying the groundwork to investigate Trump’s ballroom and other construction projects on the House Natural Resources panel.

Even in the minority on the House Homeland Security Committee, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson has tried to get answers on the administration’s deportation efforts and the practices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And that’s without committee gavels, subpoena power, and the standing to sue in court — all of which House Democrats will gain if they win the majority.

For now, Lawmakers in line to run committees are working aggressively to outline their top investigative priorities, jockeying for who will investigate what and trying to coordinate an overarching plan on ambitious investigative targets.

Democratic leadership and committee teams are preparing to launch an aggressive hiring push if they win in November to be ready for the onslaught of investigations they have planned. One of the most important roles will be who Democrats select to be their in-house general counsel, who will help Democrats navigate lawsuits and the courts.

“If you’re a highly qualified, experienced lawyer or senior staffer out there that wants to be part of this historic moment of accountability think about coming back to the Capitol and being part of this team because we will be staffing up,” Huffman told CNN.

Democrats have laid the groundwork through the creation of a legal task force, which has already racked up wins even with the party in the minority, including successfully stopping the Trump administration from blocking lawmakers from making announced oversight visits to federal immigration detention facilities.

“Should Democrats get the gavel in either chamber, we expect sustained oversight across a sweeping range of issues and entities. Companies and institutions should use the time they have now to prepare for that scrutiny,” said Emily Loeb, a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, whose team has already been contacted by companies preparing for congressional investigations.

Of course, there’s no guarantee of success in the courts. But Democrats say they are not deterred by that, including a recent decision by the Supreme Court that cleared the way for Trump to continue construction of his massive new ballroom project at the White House, concluding that a preservation group lacked the legal right — known as standing — to challenge the project.

“Donald Trump will not be able to run out the clock on these illegal construction projects because his buddies on the Supreme Court bounced a case for lack of standing,” Huffman said.

But bringing an issue to court would just be one option at the party’s disposal.

Anticipating roadblocks from the Trump administration, Democrats also plan to rely heavily on requests for information from the private sector, which they say would not be beholden to the same executive privilege restrictions Trump may invoke on government officials asked to comply with congressional requests or subpoenas.

And Democrats say they have already developed relationships with multiple whistleblowers both inside and outside the government who they would also rely on in the majority if they can’t get the answers they seek directly from Trump administration officials.

Introducing legislation would also be a component of the investigative agenda, including trying to give Congress a role in the enactment of the 25th Amendment, imposing stricter requirements barring a president from profiting from a foreign government, and permanently eliminating t he “anti-weaponization” fund.

Raskin was the lead manager for Trump’s second impeachment trial in February 2021, and does not think impeaching Trump should even be in the initial conversation if Democrats reclaim the majority in November, given the chances of conviction in the Senate are so slim.

“I’ve not heard a single person say to me that they think our top priority should be impeachment of Donald Trump,” Raskin told CNN. “He hasn’t been convicted, and the chances of conviction on even his most gross and undeniable offenses against the Constitution are slim because he exercises even more authoritarian control over the Republican Congress than he did in the last impeachment.”

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Garcia, meanwhile, said his focus is on finding evidence of what he says is Trump’s corruption.

“Trump commits an impeachable offense every week. But our job is to stop Trump, to stop his agenda. That’s job number one. So, for us, our job is to (do) investigations and building a case as to why this is the most corrupt person ever to serve,” he told CNN.

But even if impeachment turns out to not be most effective strategy as conviction remains unlikely in the Senate, Smith argued that Democrats should not shy away from making the case for why Trump should be impeached: “I’m going to be all in favor of pushing that argument.”

And while Democratic leaders have not endorsed impeachment, there is still pressure to pursue it within the rank-and-file.

Dozens of Democrats supported the launch of a formal impeachment debate back in June 2025.

One of those Democrats to vote back in June, Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari, told CNN she supports impeaching Trump but is more focused on showing accountability.

“I do hear a lot from my constituents about how we need to really prosecute if there are crimes that have been committed and people want to see people in power go to jail if they’ve committed crimes. It’s really that simple,” she told CNN. “We think now that there could never be another Donald Trump. There could easily be another Donald Trump. There could be a worse version of Donald Trump. And if we don’t show that there are consequences, then people also just won’t trust government.”

In her view, the mistake Democrats made after the past impeachments, which occurred before she assumed office, was trying to go back to normal afterward.

“I think in many ways that allowed Trump 2.0 to be so much worse because they thought they could get away with the worst possible things and nothing happened and in fact, he ultimately was re-elected again,” Ansari said.

Another one of those Democrats to vote back in June of last year, Rep. Mark Pocan, who is in line to chair the subcommittee that oversees the White House budget and the now defunct Department of Government Efficiency, now says Democrats need to not get ahead of themselves.

“I think we’ve got to do our investigation work first and that’s oversight work” Pocan said.

It’s a delicate balance that Democrats are trying to strike as members actively discuss how to deliver accountability without rushing into anything.

“Everyone’s got an axe to grind with this administration,” Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who serves on the Oversight Committee, told CNN. “I think there are definitely people who, the first thing they want to do is start impeaching Trump. We’ve already had that happen this Congress. I just want to make sure if we do impeachment, that’s it’s going to be an ironclad case.”

Wanting to be strategic about how to investigate Trump, some Democrats say that momentum for impeaching Trump cabinet officials, particularly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, could take off first.

“Impeaching this president has caused his supporters to dig in even harder. And his party members to dig in and defend him even harder,” Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee told CNN. “I suspect that some of those peripheral impeachment efforts might move sooner.”

Many Democrats, though, argue the entire conversation about a potential future investigative agenda is premature and the focus now is on winning back the House with a sizable majority and keeping up hope that the Senate could also be in play.

Democrats say they will also be proactive in trying to tie any oversight work to their efforts to address the affordability concerns that many people face, in an effort to combat criticism that their investigations would be squarely about going after Trump.

“I don’t think they’re incompatible. You cannot address the cost of living without the impact of corruption on the American public. So, I think they’re hand in hand,” Democratic Rep. Joe Morelle, who is leading the task force to create the anti-corruption agenda for Democrats if they win the majority, told CNN.

In the aggressive pursuit of oversight, some Democrats are wary of the caucus losing sight of its affordability message. Making that connection between Democrats’ affordability and anti-corruption agenda is a critical goal for the party this fall in the final sprint ahead of the midterms.

“If we are entrusted with the majority, we have to meet the moment to turn the ship around,” Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio told CNN. “We have to take the economic fight front and center and we cannot only be doing oversight.”

If they win the majority, House Democrats will also have to balance their efforts to investigate the Trump administration with the reality that Democratic leadership will still have to work with the White House on various issues to ensure basic functions of the government, like keeping the government funded, can continue.

Democrats were split after House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently took a private meeting with Kushner . But many said later they felt reassured after hearing the explanation from the Democratic leader, who said Kushner asked for the meeting and he took it “to discuss the affordability crisis,” and said even if Jeffries were to continue taking meetings with administration officials it would have no bearing on Democrats’ plans for aggressive oversight, even of Kushner.

Instead of narrowing their list of investigations, the party is warming to the idea of conducting multiple, even overlapping, investigations at once.

In 2019, Democrats coalesced around an investigation that culminated in the first impeachment of Trump over allegations that the president pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals while withholding US security assistance and a White House meeting.

But in the current environment, Democrats want to be more dynamic and are prepared to have multiple hearings on different issues a day.

“We’ve got to move fast and that means it can’t all live in two committees,” a Democratic aide told CNN. “In order to make people feel like real accountability is happening, you need to have a volume and that amount of content needs to be tuned to different audiences so that people actually see it or they won’t believe we are doing anything.”

Still, other Democrats are looking to leadership for coordination as many committees have overlapping investigative targets, with Smith telling CNN, “it’s going to have to be a coordinated effort, not something that each committee is going to be flying off on their own.”

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距离中期选举还有两个月，民主党人正在为对特朗普政府展开影响深远的调查做准备，并为他们如果在 11 月赢得众议院控制权后可能面临的高风险法庭斗争做好准备。

据与十几位民主党议员和助手的谈话显示，如果民主党重新掌控众议院，唐纳德·特朗普总统与伊朗的战争、他的白宫宴会厅项目、他家族的商业交易以及政府对杰弗里·爱泼斯坦档案的处理将成为调查的重点目标。

民主党人不想错失重新夺回众议院多数席位后制衡特朗普的机会，他们表示，自上次民主党掌控众议院、特朗普执政以来，他们已经吸取了很多教训。很少有人表示有意在就职第一天就启动弹劾程序，许多人反而将目光投向了一种新的工具——诉讼，希望借此迅速获取他们想要的证词和文件。

如果民主党获得多数席位，他们将能够更有效地起诉特朗普政府，因为在少数党时期他们没有这样的资格。无论是要求政府高官提供强制证词、升级获取文件的斗争，还是试图阻止特朗普白宫宴会厅的建设，民主党都计划采取策略性且积极主动的行动，将这场斗争诉诸法庭。

“我们将动用一切手段，而且我们作为多数党议员，肯定比作为少数党议员时拥有更大的权力将自己诉诸法庭，”即将领导权力强大的众议院司法委员会的民主党众议员杰米·拉斯金告诉 CNN。

“在获取我们需要的证据方面，我们绝不接受失败的答案，”拉斯金说。

拉斯金已对小唐纳德·特朗普的风险投资公司涉嫌腐败的政府合同交易以及特朗普政府的赦免政策展开调查。众议院监督委员会首席民主党议员罗伯特·加西亚希望就政府如何处理爱泼斯坦事件，约谈总统和第一夫人，以及副总统万斯和白宫幕僚长苏西·威尔斯等高级官员。加西亚还希望就库什纳和特朗普家族成员的商业交易进行约谈。

民主党众议员亚当·史密斯计划在众议院军事委员会就特朗普政府对伊朗开战的决定以及美国对涉嫌走私毒品船只的袭击展开调查。民主党众议员贾里德·霍夫曼正在为调查特朗普的宴会厅和其他建设项目做准备，他将在众议院自然资源委员会进行表决。

即使在众议院国土安全委员会中处于少数地位，民主党众议员本尼·汤普森也一直试图了解政府的驱逐出境行动以及移民和海关执法局的做法。而且，他当时既没有委员会的议事权，也没有传唤权，更没有在法庭上提起诉讼的资格——如果众议院民主党人赢得多数席位，他们将获得所有这些权力。

目前，即将领导委员会的议员们正在积极制定他们的首要调查重点，争夺谁来调查什么，并试图协调一项雄心勃勃的调查目标的总体计划。

如果民主党在11月赢得大选，其领导层和各委员会团队正准备发起一场声势浩大的招聘活动，以应对他们计划中的一系列调查。其中最重要的职位之一是民主党内部总法律顾问的选拔，该职位将帮助民主党应对诉讼和法庭程序。

“如果你是一位资历深厚、经验丰富的律师或高级职员，想要参与到这个具有历史意义的问责时刻，请考虑回到国会大厦，加入我们的团队，因为我们将扩充人员，”霍夫曼告诉 CNN。

民主党人通过成立法律工作组奠定了基础，即使该党处于少数地位，该工作组也已经取得了一些胜利，包括成功阻止特朗普政府阻止立法者对联邦移民拘留设施进行已宣布的监督访问。

“如果民主党在参众两院中都掌控了议事槌，我们预计将会对一系列广泛的议题和实体进行持续的监督。企业和机构应该利用现在的时间为这种审查做好准备，”詹纳与布洛克律师事务所的合伙人艾米丽·勒布说道。她的团队已经接到了一些正在为国会调查做准备的公司的联系。

当然，打官司并不能保证一定成功。但民主党人表示，他们不会因此而气馁，包括最高法院最近的一项裁决，该裁决为特朗普继续在白宫建造其庞大的新宴会厅项目扫清了障碍，法院裁定一个文物保护组织缺乏挑战该项目的法律权利（即诉讼资格）。

“唐纳德·特朗普无法拖延这些非法建设项目，因为他在最高法院的朋友们以缺乏诉讼资格为由驳回了此案，”霍夫曼说。

但将问题诉诸法庭只是该党可选择的选项之一。

由于预料到特朗普政府会设置障碍，民主党人还计划大量依赖私营部门的信息请求，他们认为私营部门不会受到特朗普可能援引的行政特权限制，这些限制可能会约束被要求遵守国会请求或传票的政府官员。

民主党人表示，他们已经与政府内外的多名举报人建立了联系，如果他们无法直接从特朗普政府官员那里获得他们想要的答案，他们也会依靠这些举报人。

提出立法也将是调查议程的一部分，包括试图让国会在制定第 25 修正案中发挥作用，施加更严格的要求，禁止总统从外国政府获利，并永久取消“反武器化”基金。

拉斯金是 2021 年 2 月特朗普第二次弹劾审判的首席经理，他认为，如果民主党在 11 月重新夺回多数席位，鉴于在参议院定罪的可能性微乎其微，弹劾特朗普甚至不应该成为最初的讨论议题。

拉斯金告诉CNN：“我没听到任何人跟我说，他们认为我们首要任务应该是弹劾唐纳德·特朗普。他还没有被定罪，而且即便他犯下了最严重、最无可辩驳的违宪罪行，被定罪的可能性也很小，因为他对共和党控制的国会的专制控制甚至比上次弹劾时还要强。”

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与此同时，加西亚表示，他的重点是寻找他所说的特朗普腐败的证据。

“特朗普每周都会犯下可被弹劾的罪行。但我们的职责是阻止特朗普，阻止他的议程。这是首要任务。所以，对我们来说，我们的工作是进行调查，并收集证据，证明为什么他是历史上最腐败的官员，”他告诉CNN。

但即便弹劾最终被证明并非最有效的策略（因为参议院不太可能定罪），史密斯也认为民主党人不应该回避阐述为什么应该弹劾特朗普：“我完全赞成推进这一论点。”

虽然民主党领导人尚未支持弹劾，但普通党员中仍然存在要求弹劾的压力。

2025年6月，数十名民主党人支持启动正式的弹劾辩论。

6 月份投票支持弹劾的民主党人之一，民主党众议员亚萨明·安萨里告诉 CNN，她支持弹劾特朗普，但她更关注的是追究责任。

“我的选民经常跟我说，如果真的发生了犯罪，我们必须严惩不贷，人们希望看到那些掌权者如果犯罪就应该被绳之以法。道理就这么简单，”她告诉CNN。“我们现在觉得不会再出现第二个唐纳德·特朗普了。但其实很容易就会出现另一个唐纳德·特朗普。甚至可能出现一个比他更糟糕的唐纳德·特朗普。如果我们不让民众看到犯罪的后果，他们就不会信任政府。”

在她看来，民主党在她上任之前发生的几次弹劾之后所犯的错误是，试图恢复正常。

安萨里说：“我认为在很多方面，这使得特朗普2.0的情况更加糟糕，因为他们认为他们可以逍遥法外，做尽最糟糕的事情，结果却什么事也没发生，事实上，他最终再次当选了。”

去年六月投赞成票的另一位民主党人，众议员马克·波坎，即将担任负责监督白宫预算和现已解散的政府效率部的下属小组委员会主席，现在表示民主党人需要不要操之过急。

“我认为我们首先必须做好调查工作，也就是监督工作，”波坎说。

民主党人正努力寻求一种微妙的平衡，成员们积极讨论如何在不仓促行事的情况下落实问责制。

“每个人都对本届政府怀有怨恨，”民主党众议员苏哈斯·苏布拉马尼亚姆（Suhas Subramanyam）告诉CNN。他是众议院监督委员会的成员。“我认为肯定有人一心想弹劾特朗普。本届国会已经发生过弹劾了。我只是想确保，如果我们真的要弹劾，那一定是铁证如山。”

为了在调查特朗普的问题上采取策略，一些民主党人表示，弹劾特朗普内阁官员，特别是国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯的势头可能会率先展开。

“弹劾这位总统反而让他的支持者更加坚定地捍卫他，也让他的党内成员更加坚定地维护他，”众议院司法委员会成员、民主党众议员玛丽·盖伊·斯坎伦告诉CNN。“我怀疑一些无关紧要的弹劾行动可能会提前展开。”

不过，许多民主党人认为，现在讨论未来可能的调查议程还为时过早，目前的重点是赢得众议院的多数席位，并保持希望，争取拿下参议院。

民主党人表示，他们还将积极主动地将任何监督工作与他们解决许多人面临的负担能力问题的努力联系起来，以反驳有关他们的调查完全是为了针对特朗普的批评。

“我不认为这两者是相互矛盾的。如果不考虑腐败对美国公众的影响，就无法解决生活成本问题。所以，我认为这两者是相辅相成的。”民主党众议员乔·莫雷尔告诉CNN。他领导着一个工作组，负责制定民主党若赢得多数席位后的反腐败议程。

在积极推进监督工作的过程中，一些民主党人担心党团会议会忽略其“经济实惠”的竞选纲领。在即将到来的中期选举冲刺阶段，将民主党的“经济实惠”与反腐败议程联系起来，是该党今年秋季的一项关键目标。

“如果我们被赋予多数席位，我们就必须抓住时机扭转乾坤，”民主党众议员克里斯·德卢齐奥告诉CNN。“我们必须把经济斗争放在首位，而不能仅仅停留在监督层面。”

如果民主党赢得多数席位，众议院民主党人还必须权衡调查特朗普政府的努力与现实情况，即民主党领导层仍然需要在各种问题上与白宫合作，以确保政府的基本职能（例如维持政府资金）能够继续运作。

众议院民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯近日与库什纳举行了一次私人会晤，此事一度引发民主党内部的分歧。但许多人随后表示，在听取了杰弗里斯的解释后，他们感到安心。杰弗里斯称，此次会晤是库什纳主动提出的，他赴约是为了“讨论住房可负担性危机”。他还表示，即便杰弗里斯继续与政府官员会面，也不会影响民主党对包括库什纳在内的政府官员进行积极监督的计划。

该党非但没有缩小调查范围，反而倾向于同时开展多项甚至重叠的调查。

2019 年，民主党人团结起来，展开调查，最终导致特朗普首次遭到弹劾。弹劾指控称，特朗普向乌克兰施压，要求其调查自己的政治对手，同时扣留美国安全援助和白宫会晤机会。

但在当前环境下，民主党人希望更加积极主动，并准备每天就不同议题举行多场听证会。

一位民主党助手告诉CNN：“我们必须迅速行动，这意味着所有工作不能只由两个委员会负责。为了让人们感受到真正的问责制正在实施，我们需要大量的信息，而且这些信息需要针对不同的受众群体进行调整，这样人们才能真正看到，否则他们不会相信我们正在采取任何行动。”

不过，其他民主党人则希望领导层能够进行协调，因为许多委员会的调查目标存在重叠。史密斯告诉 CNN：“这必须是一项协调一致的努力，而不是每个委员会各自为政。”