U.S. President Donald Trump at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
When Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, Republicans knew that President Donald Trump would be targeted for probes and investigations by House committees. Now, eight years later, GOP insiders fear that history will repeat itself if Republicans lose the House in the 2026 midterms. And Never Trump conservative Charlie Dent predicts that Democrats will have a "field day" investigating the president if they control Congress' lower chamber next year.
The Guardian asked Dent and other prominent figures in Washington D.C. what the House would look like under Democratic control in 2027, and they predicted one Trump-related probe after another.
Conservative attorney Ty Cobb, who served as White House counsel in Trump's first administration but is now highly critical of him, stressed that his $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund will likely be investigated if Democrats control the House next year.
Cobb told The Guardian, "Trump's corruption is one of a kind. ... There's no way to discuss the slush fund as anything but criminal conduct."
Cobb, according to The Guardian's Peter Stone, "urged House investigations into Trump's recently reported $220m to $750m in stock trades, which included shares of Nvidia and of many other major government contractors." And the former Trump White House counsel recommended investigations of "the Qatari $400m plane given to Trump and related quid pro quo, plus the (United Arab Emirates') $500m investment in Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto currency venture and the sensitive chips they were given in exchange."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Guardian, "The political and financial corruption driving the Trump presidency is a civic emergency. Congress has a responsibility to confront all this corruption directly, to expose it and take all steps necessary to crush it as quickly as possible. Democrats may not yet hold the gavels, but we are already pursuing a broad range of investigations using every tool available to us. That work includes scrutiny of, and opposition to, the $1.8bn convicted criminal slush fund and super pardon for the Trumps."
Former Rep. Dent (R-Pennsylvania) told The Guardian that "the (House) Judiciary Committee will have a field day" investigating prosecutions coming from the Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Law professor and former DOJ federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, a frequent legal analyst for MS NOW, told The Guardian, "Trump's acceptance of emoluments, such as the plane from Qatar, his solicitation of donations for his ballroom from government contractors, and the apparent cottage industry that has developed around the pardon power are all worthy of investigation because they suggest a president whose loyalty to the American people is compromised. Another area Congress should probe is the Trump administration's apparent abuse of the Justice Department to attack enemies, such as ex-FBI director (James) Comey, New York AG Letitia James, former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell."
McQuade added, "The Constitution requires the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Weaponizing the legal system for political gain betrays that duty."