White House readies aggressive fight against planned investigations by Congress

WASHINGTON - The White House, anticipating a surge of congressional oversight and legislative probes, has started staffing up its counsel’s office — with 15 additional hires so far — as it prepares to do legal battle.

Investigations are expected to ramp up aggressively in January.

The aggressive pushback has already begun: On Wednesday, the White House released a letter from White House counsel Will Scharf accusing Democrats of making “abusive and capricious threats” that aim to “interfere with the lawful functioning of government.”

The letter to Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), who is expected to chair the House Oversight Committee in the new Congress, made clear that the administration would resist congressional subpoenas on the grounds that they lack a “legitimate legislative purpose.” It went further to suggest that the administration might try to investigate the investigators, saying that “threats to executive branch officials” would go beyond Congress’s legitimate oversight role and “may cross the line into blatant criminality.”

The prospect of sustained clashes between the White House and a Democratic Congress already has private companies and law firms building up their staffs to prepare for an onslaught. Advisers and allies to President Donald Trump have lawyered up. And K Street lobbying firms are readying for questions from congressional committees looking to probe their ties to an administration that has not shied from its image of being open for business.

Preparations inside the White House began well before the election. David Warrington, then the incoming White House counsel, began planning for congressional oversight hearings as far back as the presidential transition in 2024. That work picked up this year as White House lawyers realized that Republicans could lose the House.

Lawyers from the counsel’s office have been meeting with agency general counsels for months to plan how to respond to congressional inquiries, according to a person familiar with the preparations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Trump’s choice of Stephen Miller as his chief of staff also suggests a combative posture.

Beyond arguing that congressional probes lack a valid legislative purpose, an August opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel previewed another claim the administration probably will make. The office concluded that executive privilege can shield communications even with advisers outside government when they concern official presidential decisions and involve the president or his direct aides.

Even if these challenges ultimately fail, litigation challenging subpoenas or other demands could take years, running out the clock until the end of Trump’s term, attorneys close to the White House said.

“There’s a lot of talk about lessons that congressional Democrats learned conducting oversight during the first Trump administration,” said Peter Rechter, partner at the law firm Wiley Rein and a associate counsel at the White House during the Biden administration. “But Trump administration officials learned lessons too. And I think one of those lessons is that litigation can be a powerful tool to slow things down.” (Source: The Washington Post)