White House threatens Democrats over plans to investigate Trump officials

With Democrats set to take control of Congress, the White House is threatening them over investigations into the Trump administration. The top White House lawyer warned that aggressive oversight of the administration “may cross the line into blatant criminality.” It comes amid a wave of resignations within the Justice Department. Amna Nawaz discussed more with Devlin Barrett of The New York Times.

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz:

As Democrats gear up to take control of Congress, the White House is threatening them over planned investigations into the Trump administration.

In a letter this week, the top White House lawyer warned the likely incoming House Oversight chair, Robert Garcia, that aggressive oversight of the administration -- quote -- "may cross the line into blatant criminality."

It comes amid a wave of high-profile resignations within the Justice Department following last week's Democratic wins and reporting that there are more to come.

Here to discuss this is Devlin Barrett. He's a New York Times reporter who covers federal law enforcement.

Welcome back. Good to see you.

Devlin Barrett:

Thanks for having me.

Amna Nawaz:

Let's start with this letter. Is there any basis for the White House to be threatening members of Congress for their oversight?

Devlin Barrett:

Look, as a legal document, it doesn't mean very much. As a political document, it's quite important, because it's sending the message about how much the White House plans to fight these investigations.

We have already seen the administration fight even judicial inquiries about what the administration has done. So I take this letter to basically mean, we intend to fight every subpoena you send us.

Amna Nawaz:

Related to that, we saw the attorney general, Todd Blanche, over the weekend say that Democrats' talk about investigating some of the administration was akin to outright threats and that some of those could be considered a crime.

Do you see the attorney general launching probes into Democratic lawmakers who are engaged in oversight?

Devlin Barrett:

Well, we have already seen them launch probes into Democratic lawmakers for very shaky premises. For example, there was an attempt to get an indictment on lawmakers who made a video talking to military officers about not following illegal orders.

I don't think there's any reason to expect they will stop launching investigations of Democratic lawmakers. But I think, when it comes to this particular fight over investigations, they're going to be very hard-pressed to craft a sort of criminal theory of why a congressional investigation is in any way a crime.

They haven't articulated that certainly. The letter really doesn't, nor does Blanche in his comments.

Amna Nawaz:

Devlin, let's talk about some of those resignations, several high-profile folks leaving their jobs in the last week, and some were very strong enforcers of the president's agenda, among them Harmeet Dhillon, who was the president's former personal lawyer and led the Civil Rights Division to DOJ, Jason Quinones, who oversaw investigations into the president's opponents.

Brett Shumate was central in attacking DEI programs, and John Eisenberg oversaw national security at the Department of Justice. What do we know about why they're leaving and why now?

Devlin Barrett:

First of all, it's not completely out of the ordinary for senior DOJ officials to leave after an election, to leave after two years.

But, obviously, this is a very different type of Department of Justice in the Trump administration. And I think what you're seeing here in a lot of these cases is senior officials who, for very different reasons, each sort of unique to their own jobs, did not live up to some of the expectations that the White House set for them or even that Todd Blanche set for them, particularly when you look at the U.S. attorney in Miami, who's in charge of this grand conspiracy investigation of former officials.

There's been a lot of disappointment by the White House that that hasn't produced more in the way of criminal charges or accusations.

Amna Nawaz:

You think that they were forced out of these rules or asked to leave?

Devlin Barrett:

Our reporting shows that there is a significant amount of displeasure from senior officials with the U.S. attorney in Miami who just left. And there were significant disagreements in some of these other issues like national security, like civil rights.

Amna Nawaz:

Permanent replacements for those roles would require Senate confirmation. With the incoming Democratic majority, how do you see that playing out?

Devlin Barrett:

Well, that's why these departures are categorically different than many other administrations, because it's going to be extremely hard to confirm someone in these top jobs that the president would like to have in these top jobs.

So it may be that, for the people who stay in the Trump Justice Department, they may be in a sense locked in for a long -- for the rest of the ride.

Amna Nawaz:

There's also this reporting that the DOJ warned its field office leaders in a meeting earlier this week to prepare to be on -- quote -- "wartime footing" when Democrats take over or to leave if they couldn't do that.

When you hear that, combined with these resignations, what do you think we should expect to see from the Department of Justice?

Devlin Barrett:

So one thing is, this happened in the type of call where the person -- the senior official doing these calls does a lot of this sort of rhetoric. Like, to many of the career staff, it comes across as wild rhetoric.

But this kind of rhetoric is not that unusual for this senior official. But what's really interesting here is, the elections had consequences for the Justice Department. And one of those consequences is states like Texas are now going to be run by Democratic officials.

Until now, states like Texas have been very cooperative with the Trump administration on issues related to ICE and immigration. You have already seen local officials in Texas say they are going to cut back on that cooperation.

So I think what you're seeing in terms of statements like that is, you're seeing from Stephen Miller on down, this administration is preparing for more arguments and more fights with local officials, similar to the ones that they have had with officials, for example, in Minnesota. And, politically speaking, in some ways, Texas just became Minnesota.

Amna Nawaz:

The Democrats are also preparing their agenda for the when they assume the majority in both chambers of Congress.

The idea of impeaching Todd Blanche, attorney general, has also been raised by a couple of lawmakers, including Jamie Raskin, who's poised to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. How likely is that kind of move, based on your reporting, and how is that resonating within the Justice Department?

Devlin Barrett:

Todd Blanche has overseen a drastic set of changes at the Justice Department, causing mass departures, mass firings, and there is a tremendous morale problem within the rank and file of the department.

Nobody really, I think, has a great read on what Congress is going to do. I think we're now -- that letter we talked about earlier shows that everyone is sort of like drawing lines and talking tough.

But, at some point, Congress is going to have to show up and cast votes, and we will see then how much they are willing -- which officials they really want to go after. Obviously, Pete Hegseth is another important target at the Pentagon. The Democrats are going to have to make some decisions and make -- decide priorities about who they want to really go after.

Amna Nawaz:

We will be following your reporting, for sure.

Devlin Barrett of The New York Times, always great to see you. Thank you.

Devlin Barrett:

Thanks for having me.