White House confronts Democrats over planned probes, claiming possible
'criminality'
[November 12, 2026]
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, SEUNG MIN KIM and JOEY CAPPELLETTI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has issued a warning to Democrats over
their planned probes into the Trump administration, going as far as
claiming that such investigations — a standard oversight function of
Congress — may amount to “blatant criminality.”
White House counsel Will Scharf issued the warning in a letter dated
Monday to Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight
Committee.
Garcia most likely would chair the powerful panel in the new
Democratic-controlled Congress that is seated in January. Garcia warned
Trump officials to “lawyer up” as his party was on the way to stunning
victories in last week's midterm election.
In response, Scharf wrote that “threats to executive branch officials
designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely
to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into
blatant criminality." The letter’s existence was first reported by
Punchbowl News.
It's just the latest shot across the bow as the White House prepares to
square off against newly empowered Democrats in the House and Senate
next year, a showdown with major implications for congressional
authority and the balance of power between the branches of government.
Garcia pushes back on the White House letter
Outside the Capitol on Wednesday, Garcia told reporters that “Donald
Trump is clearly hiding something” and that Democrats “are not going to
be threatened or intimidated.”
“The truth is that he needs to understand that Congress is a coequal
branch of government,” Garcia said.
He doubled down on his “lawyer up” post after the election, saying the
White House was “thin-skinned” and couldn't “take any sort of heat.”
“If you have abused the American public, you should lawyer up," Garcia
said. “If you're a corporate CEO and you're ripping off the American
people, you should lawyer up.”
Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda to look at how Trump and
his family have become wealthier since he returned to office. The
Republican president and his White House have long denied any
wrongdoing.
Garcia also wants to look at the administration’s handling of the
Jeffrey Epstein investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
operations. Other targets include Trump’s White House ballroom and other
construction projects, as well as the Trump family’s role in mineral
deals and Trump’s crypto dealings with special envoy Steve Witkoff.
The Republican chair of Oversight says the panel is ‘very
independent’
Kentucky Republican James Comer, the current chair of the Oversight
Committee who conducted a wide-ranging investigation of former President
Joe Biden and his family, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he
had not yet read the letter from the White House, but stressed that the
panel is "very independent.”
“Regardless of who is in the White House, there's always going to be a
strong desire for the Oversight Committee to be a check and balance on
the executive branch, regardless of the political scenario," Comer said.
He said he thought Garcia's “lawyer up” comments were in “bad taste” but
Democrats "won the election and it's going to be his committee. So if he
gets out of line, I would assume that his members will try to rein him
in.”
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President Donald Trump speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room
at the White House Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Alex Brandon)
Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a CNN interview that aired
Sunday that “there could be” a crime to investigate if rhetoric from
Democrats turned threatening. He appeared to strike a more
conciliatory tone during an appearance in Missouri this week, saying
“Congress has oversight authority. It always has, it always will.
The Department of Justice, the federal government, works with
Congress to address questions they have — whether it’s through
subpoenas or letters — so we’re not going to stop working with
Congress.”
“Nothing I’ve said this weekend, or in the past, should suggest
otherwise,” he added.
Still, Justice Department officials elsewhere were pushing back.
Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Texas,
wrote to Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday, telling
him to preserve all records relevant to his investigations.
Blumenthal is poised to chair a powerful Senate investigative
committee in January. Reitz called Blumenthal’s efforts an “intent
to deprive citizens of their core constitutional rights,” pointing
to his October letter to people who donated to the new White House
ballroom.
In response, Blumenthal said he “will not be intimidated.”
“The Trump administration is so afraid of transparency and oversight
that they are weaponizing the Department of Justice to baselessly
target Congress in direct violation of the Constitution," he said in
a statement.
Other lawmakers react to the White House's warning
Outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Trump critic,
said he hopes Democrats don't squander their new powers on “stupid
things.”
“I hope they have real hearings about real things, not another
Russia-gate,” he said, referring to a previous congressional inquiry
into ties between Trump's first presidential campaign in 2016 and
Russia. Trump repeatedly denounced that investigation as a “hoax.”
“I think there is some real corruption there around the fringes,”
Massie said about Trump and some of those around the president.
Massie lost his primary election to a Trump-backed GOP challenger.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., who is expected to be the next House
Ethics Committee chairman, said he would not back down from any
investigations because of warnings from the White House.
“If they're trying to intimidate, at least for me, it’s not going to
get me,” said DeSaulnier, who was a Republican before he switched to
the Democratic Party in 2000. “I don’t work for a mafia, a mob
organization.”
___
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker and AP video journalist Nathan
Ellgren contributed to this report.
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