Democrats are upfront about what they’ll do if they take control of the Senate and House – here are their priorities | Democrats

The family business

Garcia ranks Trump family corruption first on his list for the Oversight Committee, while Raskin has requested information on Kushner and Trump Jr.’s business dealings.

On August 25, Raskin wrote to Kushner, renewing his request for documents about his dual role as Trump’s informal foreign policy adviser and head of a private equity firm that does business with foreign governments. He has been suing Kushner’s company, Affinity Partners, since 2023, when he said it withdrew $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund after Kushner left the White House.

There’s also the $400 million plane Qatar gave to Trump, a Trump Jr. wedding party partly financed by a Russian oligarch, and several multimillion-dollar defense contracts won by the extended Trump family that will come under closer scrutiny.

The IRS regulation

In May, the Justice Department settled the president’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS with an order barring the agency from auditing past returns of Trump, his family and related companies.

Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Raskin demanded documents on the negotiations, the roles of Justice Department and Treasury officials, and safeguards against fraud, with a deadline of May 27 before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears before Neal’s committee.

In the Senate, Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee, and 12 other Finance Democrats called on May 22 for a bipartisan investigation into the settlement and the administration’s decision to ban the IRS from auditing Trump, his family and his businesses. At a hearing, Wyden asked Bessent whether audit immunity remained in effect, to which he refused to answer.

On July 7, Wyden, Warren and Schumer wrote to 11 companies, including Kalshi and Polymarket, asking whether they intended to rely on the agreement as protection against audits, given Trump Jr’s financial ties to these companies. Raskin and Garcia, meanwhile, demanded correspondence between Trump’s lawyers and the Justice Department over his $230 million claim for prior investigations. A federal judge ruled the order violated federal law, according to Warren’s office, and the legal fight was unresolved.

Crypto and betting markets

Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, opened a preliminary investigation and wrote to the executives behind the $Trump meme and to World Liberty Financial, asking questions about the ownership and investment structure. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, has asked the Office of Government Ethics to review a deal involving World Liberty, Binance and a UAE state-backed fund.

Warren, Blumenthal, Gary Peters, Dick Durbin and Wyden requested hearings after revelations showed Trump made more than $1.2 billion from crypto businesses, including about $588 million tied to World Liberty token sales. In the House, Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, called for legislation to “end the president’s crypto profits and recoup his ill-gotten gains.”

Regarding the forecast markets, the July letter to Kalshi’s chief executive said Trump Jr. was a “strategic advisor” to the company, and seven Democratic lawmakers asked Oversight Chairman James Comer to subpoena the markets for suspicious transactions related to the Iran war.

This one has the biggest bipartisan appeal: Republican Senator John Curtis has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena Trump Jr for his ties to Kalshi and Polymarket, and Comer has opened his own insider trading investigation.

Epstein and the emails

Through the joint efforts of Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, the Justice Department was forced to release millions of records related to Jeffrey Epstein last year.

But from the outset, the Justice Department exceeded the legal deadline to release the files. Then, he only published about 3.5 million pages out of the 6 million in his possession; he said he considered the rest to be duplicates. And there has been bipartisan dismay over the extensive redactions in some places and the seemingly accidental release of victims’ names in other places. The Justice Department now faces a lawsuit from journalist Katie Phang on many of these issues.

Even under a Republican-controlled Congress, the Oversight Committee led by GOP Chairman James Comer has been a rare locus of bipartisan comity, with members from both sides regularly (but not always) acting in concert to subpoena witnesses and scorning them when they don’t cooperate. Expect this to continue in any new Democratic Congress.

The Pentagon and wars

Jason Crow, a Colorado congressman who serves on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees and co-chairs the House Caucus to End Corruption, said he would start with the Pentagon, citing reports that defense money was being directed to companies linked to the Trump family.

The most striking look so far is a January letter from Warren, Blumenthal and Andy Kim. It lists companies backed by 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm Trump Jr joined as a partner: Cerberus ($45 million), PsiQuantum ($10.8 million), Firehawk Aerospace ($4.9 million) and Vulcan Elements ($10 million, plus a reported $620 million loan). It also cites a $12.8 million contract with Unusual Machines, a drone company in which Trump Jr has a stake. Senators asked whether the Vulcan loan was competitive, whether Trump Jr. officials had reviewed Pentagon jobs and for every contact between Defense Department officials and Trump Jr. since November 5, 2024.

A subsequent response from the Pentagon, they wrote, showed no guarantees against such conflicts. Vulcan and the Pentagon have denied any involvement by Trump Jr in the loan.

On the war, Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led his colleagues in demanding that Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Steve Witkoff and Kushner testify on the Iran war, and forced a vote to subpoena them. He also demanded that documents on Venezuelan oil revenues be transferred to an account in Qatar.

In 2025, Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, pushed for an expanded inspector general investigation into the defense secretary’s use of Signal. He and Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, objected to a memo from Hegseth routing the Pentagon’s communications with Congress through his office.

Immigration Enforcement and Who Benefits

In March, Raskin and Warren led 52 lawmakers who wrote to six companies linked to ICE’s warehouse detention plan: CoreCivic, Geo Group, GardaWorld Federal, Gosin Group, KVG LLC and PNK Group. They requested expected profit margins, lobbying efforts and donations to Trump’s campaign or cabinet officials by April 13.

The plan costs $38.3 billion and aims to accommodate nearly 100,000 people by November. Lawmakers reported that ICE was paying $129 million for a Georgia facility, nearly five times its estimated value, and that a contract manager came from Geo. Garcia’s watchdog Democrats separately wrote to Geo about Corey Lewandowski’s dealings, after reports that he sought personal payments from contractors.

Peters, the top outgoing Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, led a letter seeking any DHS contracts that border czar Tom Homan may have influenced, after reports of a corruption investigation. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, would raise the issue.

Warren’s Wall Street

If Democrats flip the Senate, Elizabeth Warren, now ranking member, would be able to chair the Banking Committee, and private credit would be her most likely target. On May 13, she wrote to Bessent and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins about how deregulation has increased private credit risks, with responses due May 26. In July 2025, she asked Bessent to carry out a market stress test, which he did not do. She also wrote to rating agencies, including S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, about allegedly inflated private credit ratings.

When Blue Owl restricted withdrawals from a fund, it called for higher capital requirements for private credit exposures, transparent data from firms and a stress test.

The joker

Impeachment weighs on all of this. Trump was impeached twice during his first term and acquitted both times. Jeffries says Democrats haven’t decided or ruled out anything, while House Majority Leader Steve Scalise predicts an attempt on “day one.”

Even if Jeffries doesn’t ultimately pursue impeachment, Trump could ultimately force his hand. Nancy Pelosi fended off left-wing calls for impeachment for months after becoming Speaker of the House following the 2018 midterm elections, but when Trump tried to get Ukrainian leaders to pursue an investigation into Joe Biden — and then incited the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — Pelosi relented and oversaw two different impeachment trials.