What a week. Thanks so much for joining me on this wonderful Saturday. I hope you’re feeling good, because you deserve it. For two years, all we could do was guess what a Democratic Congress might do. Now I can tell you what’s actually going to happen. How am I so sure? Because we will make it happen.
In January, Democrats will hold every gavel in Congress—that comes with subpoena power. The Trump regime hid behind the GOP majority and ignored most inquiries from Democrats. That time is over.
Right after the election, we launched our biggest pressure campaign on Congress ever. We draft the letters for folks so all they have to do is add their name and hit send. Congress has to listen, and not just because I know a lot of them personally. If a Democrat gets a gavel and doesn’t use it, they’ll hear from us. Loudly. And immediately.
All of our funding comes from paid subscribers. No advertisers. No billionaires. No nonsense. Every subscription pays for our investigating, reporting, online organizing, and keeping the heat on Congress. You get my exclusive posts and interviews, and you see what we dig up before it runs anywhere else. In January, Trump’s people start answering subpoenas for the first time in two years, and I want you right there with me when they do. Join us here:
Before you dig in, hit the ❤️ like button, then the restack/share button next to it. That’s the two little arrows going around in a circle, and it sends this edition to everyone who follows you on Substack. Trump’s own lawyers messed up, and it leaves his family’s deals open to subpoenas. Share this so everyone finds out.
Wyden Finally Gets His Subpoenas
Late on Tuesday night, Rep. Robert Garcia, who’s in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, posted two words on social media: “LAWYER UP.” An hour later, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon posted one word: “Subpoenas.”
On Friday, Trump went on Truth Social and promoted Stephen Miller—who Garcia says designed the ICE raids—to White House chief of staff. Garcia answered within hours with a statement that ended in five words: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”
He’s also posted his first targets on video: Don Jr.’s wedding party, which Garcia called a “red wedding,” the Trump sons sitting on the boards of companies with Pentagon contracts, the family crypto schemes, Jared Kushner, the ballroom, the arch, and “those co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein.” He called them “the crime family that are sitting in the White House.”
The Trump regime knew where this would be heading. In October, Cabinet secretaries and staffers were already reaching out to law firms, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Trump regime has been protecting Epstein’s bankers, and Senate Republicans made sure nobody could touch them. For four years, Wyden has investigated the Epstein money trail and the banks that handled it. His August report named 13 senior bankers he says should be investigated. But because he didn’t have subpoena power, Wyden couldn’t make any of them testify. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to give the committee the Treasury’s Epstein records. Wyden wrote a bill to force him, but Republicans blocked it.
On Wednesday of this week, Wyden gave a stark warning: “When I am chair, they will be forced to answer to the Senate Finance Committee for their role in hurting the American people and enabling Trump’s corruption.”
About half of voters told The AP Voter Poll that government corruption was crucial to their vote for Congress, and most of those voters backed the Democrat in their House race. Voters asked for exactly this. In January, Wyden is set to take the gavel, and Epstein’s bankers will finally have to answer to him.
Raskin Kept Every Receipt
Rep. Jamie Raskin is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. With Republicans running things, he couldn’t issue committee subpoenas on his own, so he wrote letters. More than 200 of them, including to the Justice Department, the big law firms that cut deals with Trump, and Don Jr.’s investment firm. On Thursday, he had a message for anyone wondering what comes next: “Go back and read my letters. It’s a pretty good trail of crumbs of what we’re going to do.”
In August, Raskin wrote to 1789 Capital, the investment firm that made Don Jr. a partner days after the 2024 election. According to Raskin, the firm was managing about $150 million before he joined. In that letter, he said it now manages more than $3 billion.
One company it put money in is Polymarket, a website where people go to bet on world events. Only weeks after the regime gave Polymarket the go-ahead to resume operations in the US, we learned 1789 already had money in it. “They say there is no such thing as a sure thing in investing, but this is about as close as you can get,” Raskin wrote.
Even Trump knows how it looks. In July, he told CNBC he feels bad for his kids, because “almost anything they do, if they buy an energy-efficient truck, they have inside information.” 1789 Capital’s lawyers called Raskin’s claims “unsubstantiated and emotional aspersions.”
In March, Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon tried to subpoena Don Jr. Republicans blocked it, voting her down. They then ended the hearing.
Republicans made sure no one in the Trump family has had to answer for any of their corruption. Come January, Raskin will likely chair the Judiciary Committee, where he can put Don Jr.—and everyone else—under oath.
Trump’s Legal Shield Has A Family-Sized Hole
On August 10, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel sent the White House a 21-page memo. It gave the regime a plan on how Trump could keep his talks with private advisers hidden from Congress. That includes people who don’t even work for the government. The memo came less than three months before the midterms, and the White House hadn’t named a single adviser or topic—they just wanted it in general. It’s clear the Trump regime is scared of what Congress will find, so they are looking for legal cover.
The memo says executive privilege does not cover “personal or non-official matters.” It adds that when Trump posts parts of a private conversation on social media, the information loses that protection. He’s already done that. He posted private texts from the president of France and the head of NATO on Truth Social.
Trump’s family’s business dealings are now wide open for scrutiny. Ventures like his crypto company and Don Jr.’s investment firm are private businesses. So they can’t be classified as official work. According to the memo, conversations are only protected if it’s about an official government decision Trump makes.
The courts haven’t treated privilege as a blanket excuse to defy Congress either. In July, a federal appeals court upheld Trump adviser Peter Navarro’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan 6 committee. Navarro claimed privilege there too. Judge Patricia Millett wrote that Navarro himself admitted privilege “would not have excused his categorical failure to comply.”
The memo also concedes that Congress can still overcome privilege when the information is “demonstrably critical” to its work. The regime spent August building Trump a wall against subpoenas, and its own lawyers left the family’s business deals outside it.
In January, Democrats finally get subpoena power back. And we’re going to make sure they use it on every one of those deals—and more.
Even Clarence Thomas Pointed To Impeachment
Starting in 2017, I ran the first campaign to impeach Trump. So I’ve seen him and his accomplices try to dodge subpoenas for a very long time. For example, he fought for more than a year—all the way to the Supreme Court—to keep records from his accountants away from Congress. People with nothing to hide don’t do that.
His favorite move is dragging his fights through the courts until the clock runs out. An impeachment inquiry gives Congress the most power to make him hand things over.
In 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas sided with Trump in that accountant case, but he gave Congress another way in. “The power to impeach includes a power to investigate and demand documents,” he wrote. To get Trump’s records, “it should proceed through the impeachment power,” he added. Justice Samuel Alito agreed that the House can investigate a president’s possible wrongdoing that way.
Trump has been here before. In December 2019, the House impeached him for ordering members of the regime to defy congressional subpoenas, and that article passed 229 to 198. The August privilege memo tells you they’re getting ready to stonewall again. The last time Trump stonewalled an impeachment inquiry, it became one of the charges against him.
Whether Democrats call it an impeachment, investigation, inquiry, or probe, I don’t care. We want the truth revealed and for everyone to be held accountable.
Republicans had a tight grip on every gavel in Congress, and all they used them for was protecting Trump and his family. On Tuesday, voters decided they lose every single one of those gavels in January.
Some Democrats are talking about being bipartisan for the next 57 days. Don’t mistake that for going soft. These members of Congress have been threatened, harassed, and smeared for years because of Trump. They’re hardened. And the new class coming in isn’t afraid of this regime.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it on video this week. “First you win, and then you deliver.” And delivering includes the part Trump’s people won’t like: big tech CEOs and Wall Street executives “should prepare to answer tough questions and face real consequences if they have broken the law.” “We can’t wait two years,” she said.
Republicans spent two years investigating Joe Biden’s family and came up empty. Democrats will have whistleblowers who never got to testify, and Epstein survivors who never got the public hearing they deserved. They will now.
A lot of Trump’s people are going to end up in prison for what they’ve done. If that sounds like wishful thinking, look at his first term. The investigation into his first campaign resulted in charges for 34 people, including 26 Russians who worked to get him elected. His campaign chairman and his deputy, his personal lawyer, and the first congressman to endorse him all went to prison. Trump spent the last weeks of that term pardoning almost everyone else.
He’ll try that again. This time, he’s not the only one with a list. Garcia has his. Raskin has 200 letters’ worth. And our community has slammed more than 915,000 letters on the desks of members of Congress since November 2024, so every Democrat picking up a gavel in January already knows what we’re after.
To finish the job now, we need your help. Join us as a paid subscriber today to fuel our Lame Duck Watch—which is tracking every move Republicans make on the way out. You’ll have access to our investigations as they happen, and get to see what we’ve found before it’s released anywhere else.
I’ve chased Trump’s secrets since 2016, and there’s no way I’m slowing down now that someone can finally make him answer. Join us here:
Thank you for everything you did to get us here. Don’t let anyone tell you it didn’t matter. You earned the right to enjoy this moment, and we can use this momentum to change America for the better—forever.
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Onward!
Scott
Who should be the first person Congress puts under oath in January?
What happened this election season that you’re most proud of?
The congressional hearings to hold Trump’s minions accountable will be televised so all Americans can see for themselves who is going down. So much corruption, so little popcorn.
I’m feeling something I haven’t felt in a long time: actual hope with a backbone. Voters asked for this. Now Wyden can go after Epstein’s bankers, Raskin walks in with years of receipts, and the people who acted untouchable are being told to lawyer up. We cannot waste this moment.