White House Counsel Warns Garcia That Planned Probes May Break the Law

WASHINGTON: The White House has warned the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee that some of the investigations Democrats plan to open in January may violate the law.

In a letter dated Monday, White House counsel Will Scharf told Rep. Robert Garcia of California that Congress must "identify a legitimate legislative purpose" for its investigations, Bloomberg Government reported. The letter was first reported by Punchbowl News on Wednesday morning, and The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post reported it the same morning.

"The administration will not be extorted and will not be cowed," Scharf wrote, according to the Post.

What the letter argues

Scharf wrote that he was reminding Garcia of "the foundational limits that the Constitution imposes on congressional investigations and subpoenas, which you and members of the new Congress have evinced a clear intent to transgress," according to the text of the letter published by Punchbowl News.

The letter says the Supreme Court has held that investigations conducted only for personal aggrandizement, or to punish those investigated, are indefensible. It says congressional investigations must further a legitimate legislative task, and that Congress cannot use them to exercise powers of criminal prosecution assigned to the executive branch and the judiciary.

"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," Scharf wrote. He added that "issuing unlawful subpoenas with the intention of depriving citizens of their constitutional rights and privileges may warrant further investigation."

Scharf also said the administration is "monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators." He pointed to pledges by Democrats to hand out subpoenas like "candy" and "Mardi Gras beads," and in numbers large enough, in the letter's words, to level forests.

A fight set up by the midterms

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 3 midterm elections and take over in January. Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, posted "Lawyer up" on election night. He told CNN on Sunday that Elon Musk and incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller will likely face congressional investigations, and he has named immigration enforcement, the Jeffrey Epstein files and the business dealings of President Donald Trump's family among his first subjects.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Sunday that the administration is ready for the fight. Trump said on Saturday that he had ordered the Justice Department to look into Democrats, accusing them of threatening people with impeachment and other forms of punishment.

The Post reported that the letter points to an aggressive defense from the White House under Miller, the new chief of staff. Scharf is a former prosecutor who served as Trump's personal attorney before the president's second term, and he became White House counsel on Sept. 1, according to the Journal.

What happens next

No subpoena has been issued, and the new Congress does not convene until January. None of the reports published on Wednesday morning carried a reply from Garcia. The first test is likely to come when the committee sends its first document demands and the White House decides whether to comply, negotiate, or refuse and take the dispute to court.