Potential House probes span Trump family business, the Pentagon and Epstein files
Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Victories in Republican districts carried the party past the 218-seat threshold needed for a House majority, and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries is poised to become majority leader. The results place both chambers under Democratic control during the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
House Republicans will lose their ability to pass legislation without Democratic support. A Democratic majority can launch investigations, demand documents and testimony, and subject senior administration officials to sustained congressional scrutiny, giving the chamber new authority over the Trump administration.
A Democratic Senate majority can block or delay many Trump appointments and force the White House to negotiate over legislation. The Senate confirms cabinet officials, ambassadors and federal judges, including Supreme Court nominees.
Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, has ranked scrutiny of Trump family business dealings first among his priorities. Representative Jamie Raskin has requested information about the business dealings of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and son Donald Trump Jr.
The Epstein files could also face renewed congressional scrutiny. Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie previously forced the Department of Justice to release millions of pages related to Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department missed a legally mandated disclosure deadline and released about 3.5 million pages of the 6 million in its possession, saying it had deemed the rest duplicates.
The disclosure also produced bipartisan concern about heavy redactions in some areas and the apparently accidental release of victims’ names. The Justice Department faces a lawsuit from journalist Katie Phang. Under Republican committee chair James Comer, oversight of the files drew bipartisan support, with members of both parties routinely — though not always — acting together to subpoena witnesses and hold them in contempt.
Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado congressman on the armed services and intelligence committees and a co-chair of the House End Corruption Caucus, said he would start with the Pentagon. He cited reports that defense money was directed toward companies linked to the Trump family.
Democrats may also face pressure from their supporters to impeach Trump for a third time. Jeffries said the party had ruled nothing out regarding impeachment, while Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise predicted an attempt on “Day 1.”
The current situation has a recent precedent. Democrats took the House in 2018, after which House committees launched dozens of inquiries into Trump’s businesses, his handling of the Russia probes and possible conflicts of interest. Just over a year later, the House impeached Trump mostly along party lines.
In that first case, Democrats accused Trump of seeking to cheat in the upcoming presidential election by pressuring Ukraine to manufacture bad news about Joe Biden and by blocking congressional oversight. The Republican-controlled Senate later acquitted Trump on both articles of impeachment.
Trump was impeached a second time in 2021 for inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and was again acquitted by the Senate. The earlier episodes provide a procedural history for the investigations and impeachment pressure that could follow the 2026 election results.