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.
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.
Unless it’s a guillotine, I’m not interested.
More knocking on doors and debates. That other shit can wait 'til later. Something about counting chickens…
bull shit. these are nothing but theater. they know that everyone wants to see retribution, and they are going to drag these out so long trump will die of old age before any thing happens. ask the wile democrats will continue to not do a damn think their base wants
I’d the new tool a woodchipper that we throw his cabinet members into?
“Let’s just focus on the future and on what we can do to be a better country. Reopening old wounds is not a good thing for the people involved who just want to move on”.
And that will be all.
Hand the administration over to the military to convict them and have secret military courts convict them and erase them from memory seizing their global assets and imprisoning the regime, their families, backers, associates
The “oh let’s be nice, they probably didn’t mean it” democrats are going to completely fuck it up.
If only it’s something more than a letter
Do you know how many strongly-worded words it takes to turn a piece of paper that shade of gray?!?¿?
You don’t need a new tool, you just need to bring charges and arrest the fucking criminals!
They can’t do that, Trump controls the DOJ.
Exactly. The old tools would have worked just fine if they had fucking used them.
Is it a paddle? Or a cricket bat?
Could someone explain how having a majority would impact the ability to sue people?
Aren’t the courts separate from the house of representatives?
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.
Eta: Thanks all. I read the article again after the replies and noticed something I missed:
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.
A different article explained the particulars:
One of the government’s principal arguments in the case is that the Trust lacks the legal right – known as “standing” – to sue in the first place. Lower courts have said that the Trust has standing because one of its members, Alison Hoagland, has shown that her enjoyment of the White House as an architectural historian is being harmed by the new ballroom.
As others noted the idea might be that if they are bringing suit about the office of the president ignoring congress, then if they sue as congress (by having the majority) it would be less likely to be challenged as not having standing.
Off topic but in the rest of the world we hear about how easy it is to sue in the states… but it seems it’s a lot easier for orgs to sue on behalf of others outside of the states!
Article III section 2 of the US Constitution.
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
Congress can say the President has done something illegal. The President can say they have not done anything illegal. You now have a controversy. The Constitution indicates that the judicial power will now handled it.
To sue someone or something means in the strictest of senses, “I wish to bring this matter before a court of law.” So a controversy has arisen, the courts have the right to review it. The Constitution outlines who is allowed to do what, and nobody is allowed to step out of that. So if a controversy wasn’t present, the the courts would have no jurisdiction.
Congress believes there is a controversy and thus they are suing. That means they wish to bring the controversy to the thing that’s indicated in the Constitution to settle such a thing.
However, you run into the very first question, “Is it a TRUE controversy? Or is it just a disagreement?” This is the no political questions doctrine. Congress and the President routinely disagree on things. The Courts aren’t there to settle a disagreement. It has to be a genuine controversy. That means “The law objectively says XYZ. The President specifically did not do XYZ. Ergo, this is not a disagreement but a President who is not following the letter of the law which is a controversy.”
So like anything Congress brings up, the President is allowed to say it’s not a controversy. What the ruling on that question, the President or Congress can appeal it. If the appeal isn’t good enough, the Supreme Court gets to make a final ruling. Once a controversy has been established, THEN, there’s the actual case. The the final decision of the case can be appealed and then brought before the Supreme Court.
Rarely do we actually get that far with things because you can’t get all that stuff done within a single President’s term. And the real reason a Controversy is attempted is to get discovery and things the President has been doing on the public record. Depends on what Congress is looking for. Perhaps they want to ensure Musk stays out of politics forever, a deep and heavy discovery process into him may just do that.
But Congress can bring a suit to the Courts so long as it’s within the powers of the Constitution for Congress to do so.
It is definitely all about the discovery.
Thanks for all this.
I understand what suing is (or at least I assume it’s not that far off from tort law)
What I don’t understand is why the democrats would have to have the majority in the house of representatives to sue. Does it have to be congress to sue? Doesn’t the blurb say citizens can sue? In this case does congress mean the senate or the house of representatives? Either or both?
What would seem likely to me is that if the party making the charge is ‘the house’ as a separate entity then you would need a majority willing to vote to support such an action. As the authors of law they would have some authority to speak to the to the intent of it, thus standing.
I could be wrong, but I think the strategy is to take control of the House, then request documents and testimony, then when ignored issue subpoenas for documents and testimony, then when they’re not forthcoming with everything, sue. Then with that publicity focused on the administration having something to hide regarding the investigations into what seems to be illegal activity, bring out the articles of impeachment.
“We suspected impeachable offenses, but rather than immediately and perhaps rashly jumping straight to impeachment, we elected to do our due diligence and offer an opportunity for this President to address the facts of these matters. Instead of seizing that opportunity, he has ignored and attacked this body while hiding information from this coequal branch of government which exists to act as a check on the power of the President. We are left with no choice but to assume that he is in violation of his oath to the Constitution, acting on behalf of himself above all, and must be removed from power before any further irreversible harm is done to this nation, her citizens, and her allies. This is not an attack, this is not vengeance, this is not pettiness; this is an act of critical emergency to ensure the survival of this Republic. This is what is required of every elected member of Congress by our own oath to the Constitution.”
For impeachment proceedings yes, but there are already impending issues, like the ballroom construction project or some immigration cases that the Supreme Court can say can keep going because the Trump administration has repeatedly argued that the existing claimants don’t have standing and only Congress can have a say. My thought is the House Majority Leader should be able to take a lot of the existing evidence to get injunctions to halt the most immediate harms while they collect more.
Thanks. Is there a reason they can’t bring lawsuits without the calling investigations via Congress? I read about orgs or states suing the gov. What am I missing that they can’t bring suits now? Maybe they aren’t the wrong party in a super black and white way?
Again, I could be wrong, but I think it’s not really “Congress” that is suing unless the majority is suing. If the issue is that the president is acting illegally, well the scotus already said that that’s allowed if the illegal acts are official acts by the office of the president, partially because impeachment is already an available avenue; then sue/indict once he’s no longer president.
Orgs can sue, but individuals can’t sue for stuff that is generally affecting all. For example, I as an individual can’t sue just because I disagree with spending tax dollars on helping Israel or hurting Iran, but Congress could sue if they explicitly did not authorize that spending and the administration did it anyway. But I don’t think any ole member could do that, I think it’s probably either from the speaker or voted on. I’m speculating, so somebody please correct me if you know better than my guesses.
Oh boy, he’s really going to suffer if the Dems win!
/s
Honestly, if he just took his stupid name off things and rebuilt the stuff he destroyed, that might just be fine. Plus just go away forever. But yeah nobody believes that will happen. Hopeless Belief.
Lawsuits, yes that’ll do it. They could also try magic (or Magick) incantations.
The lawsuits are apparently to force discovery of various bits of evidence that trimp and co want to remain hidden.
Nobody expects that Democrats are going to do a single thing. I have said for decades the oligarchy will never charge one of their own. Regardless of what liberals want to think, Trump is one of them. And I’ve been right every time.
They do plenty but you dont follow politics.
That’s cute, Their only opposition to Republicans is a random sternly worded letter.
What would you have had them do differently?
Not have Jeffries and Schumer anywhere near leadership to start.
Not them but maybe appoint someone other than this guy as the “punish the people who tried to overthrow democracy” guy.
Ssssssuuuuure
