Voters gave Democrats control of the House on Tuesday. That means that in January, the Trump administration will face a House with the power to investigate it.
On Thursday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent Republican committee chairs a letter about what to do with the time they have left.
"Although they ran on affordability, it is clear the main focus of their new majority will be retribution and unleashing countless witch hunts under the guise of 'oversight,'" Scalise wrote, according to Politico.
He told the chairs to take "inventory" of the investigations Democrats could launch under their committees and to identify administration officials who could be targets. He said Democrats are expected to go after Trump's family, cabinet officials and key allies.
"You all will be a key line of defense in this fight, and we must maximize our remaining days in power to prepare for what is coming," he wrote.
Look at what he calls them. These are the heads of committees of the United States Congress, the branch that is supposed to check the president. Scalise calls them a line of defense.
He voted for one himself
Scalise knows what a House investigation of a president looks like, because he voted for one.
On December 13, 2023, the House approved a resolution directing committees to continue an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. It passed with 221 votes. Scalise voted yes. So did Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chair now running against him to lead House Republicans.
A year later, Republicans were proud of that kind of work. After Trump won in November 2024, Speaker Mike Johnson sent letters to Biden's Cabinet secretaries ordering them to preserve their documents and communications. Breitbart reported that Scalise was among the House Republicans who signed.
The letter bragged that "House Committees conducted robust oversight" of the Biden administration.
So here is the Scalise standard. When Republicans investigate a Democratic president, it's "robust oversight." When Democrats might investigate a Republican one, it's "witch hunts under the guise of 'oversight.'"
The new majority doesn't take over until January. Scalise has already reached his verdict on what it will do.
The race to be the president's defender
This letter isn't only about Democrats. Scalise is in a fight with Jordan for the top Republican job in the House, and Politico notes that Jordan is pitching himself as the best man to counter Democrats. In his own letter to colleagues, Jordan called himself "battle-tested on the oversight front."
Battle-tested is one way to say it. In 2022, the House January 6 committee subpoenaed Jordan about what he knew about the attack. He refused. Then he issued at least 91 subpoenas of his own as Judiciary chair in the last Congress.
And when a question about abuse of power pointed the other way, the man who built a career on "weaponization" wouldn't say a word.
Both men are now selling themselves to their colleagues on how they'd handle the coming investigations. We've seen this view of the job before: Pat Fallon, who wants to run the House Oversight Committee, said the job is to defend Trump.
Scalise's letter does mention affordability, as something Democrats "ran on." In what Politico reported, the instructions to the chairs are about the investigations.
What the record shows
Two days after Republicans lost the House, Steve Scalise told committee chairs to inventory possible investigations, identify officials who could be targets, and use their "remaining days in power" to prepare, calling them "a key line of defense." He called Democratic oversight "witch hunts" before it had begun. In 2023, he and Jim Jordan both voted for an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, and in 2024 Scalise was reported as a signer of letters that praised Republicans' own "robust oversight."
Source
Steve Scalise tells GOP chairs to prep for Democratic investigations — Mia McCarthy, Politico
