The Donald Trump era is over.
After a historic midterm thrashing, the U.S. Congress that Steve Bannon compared to the Russian Duma will no longer be a rubber stamp for his authoritarianism. Democrats have a commanding majority in the House, where they will hold the power of the purse, and a strong majority in the Senate, where they will decide who qualifies for a lifetime judgeship.
The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and levy taxes like tariffs. Trump usurped that power, and his party didn’t care. The next Congress might not be so blithe.
Then, there’s subpoena power: Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the soon-to-be chairman of the House Oversight Committee who co-led the Epstein investigation, appeared to be downright giddy about using it.
“Lawyer up,” Garcia wrote in his two-word statement reacting to Trump’s electoral rout.
With impeccable timing, Trump’s lawyers will head to court a day and a half after his electoral rout to try to erase his other verdict: the 34 felony convictions dealt to him by a unanimous New York jury for business fraud for covering up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels in order to influence an election.
‘That was the mandate’
On Capitol Hill, Trump can expect relentless investigations of himself, his family and his staff.
Democratic members of the House and Senate dug into Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but now they have subpoena power. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) didn’t have that when he pursued a follow-the-money probe that traced Epstein’s assets in New York, Florida, Eastern Europe, Russia and around the world, but Wyden no longer needs a willing Republican to help him pull that thread.
Exit polls showed that corruption was the top issue for midterm voters, and the Democrats will read that as a mandate to investigate Trump’s many self-enrichment schemes, including his more than $1.5 billion cryptocurrency business, pay-for-pardon pipeline, gifts from foreign governments, and corporate bounties for his personal projects.
“That was the mandate because people were tired of the corruption,” former Florida State Attorney Dave Aronberg told All Rise News. “Even though Trump himself has unprecedented immunity from the Supreme Court, his family, his friends, and members of his administration do not.”
Then, there’s Trump family members and cronies. Elon Musk will likely become the poster boy for money in politics after his $500 million bet on Republican candidates went up in smoke, and a long-awaited reckoning could be coming for his gutting of the federal workforce under DOGE and SpaceX’s throttling of Starlink to undermine Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s illegal war.
There is no shortage of other scandals for Democrats to investigate: Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev footed the bill for the multimillion-dollar wedding bash for Donald Trump Jr. in the Bahamas. Don Jr.’s ex-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle reportedly asked a Trump donor to pay off her $100,000 American Express debt in return for favors. Ex-Trump lawyer Alina Habba received $50 million to allegedly help a Venezuelan billionaire get a pardon. (Habba and Guilfoyle deny the allegations.)
According to reports, Trump is fuming at Habba over those reports — because he didn’t receive a cut of the money, not because of any concerns of unseemly foreign influence peddling.
Meanwhile, Habba’s new husband Turhan Mildon — a Turkish tycoon who’s close to his country’s dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan — has been feuding with ex-Trump envoy Ric Grenell over a missing multimillion-dollar donation to the Kennedy Center. Habba accused Grenell of stealing the money, and investigative reporting traced the donation from a Congolese government account. Mr. Mildon serves as an advisor to Congo’s president.
So far, Trump’s so-called border czar Tom Homan has kept dodging Congress members’ questions about the $50,000 in a paper bag that he accepted during an FBI sting operation, but now his cooperation won’t be the only avenue for his questioners to get to the truth.
‘Truth serum’
Before the election, Trump floated the idea of mass pardons to the New York Post’s columnist Miranda Devine.
“Everybody who worked for you?” Devine asked.
“I would not even think about it. I’d do it,” Trump replied. “I did it for J6.”
Even setting aside his boast about his clemency for Jan. 6th insurrectionists and cop assailants, Trump’s announcement could easily backfire if he follows through with it.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Aronberg said, explaining that such a move would complicate any plans to invoke the Fifth Amendment. “If you start pardoning people, it could end up becoming a truth serum in a later congressional hearing.”
As of press time, Democrats hold at least 54 Senate seats and are expected to pick up roughly 250 seats in the House of Representatives. The House requires a simple majority for impeachment, but a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate is required for removal.
The Trump Justice Department still has not withdrawn an appeal seeking to block any certification of any Senate victory by Democratic candidate Mary Peltola. A district court judge dismissed the original lawsuit, and it is widely expected to fail on appeal — if the race itself doesn’t make the lawsuit moot. Shockingly, Democratic candidate Scott Colom holds a narrow lead over the GOP incumbent in deep-red Mississippi, and mail ballots are expected to keep coming in until Tuesday. A Supreme Court ruling from earlier this year allowed the counting of late arriving ballots in that state and could contribute to one of the midterm’s biggest upsets.
That could be enough to impose real restraints on Attorney General Todd Blanche’s targeting of Trump’s political enemies. House Democrats already have an investigation of a whistleblower’s complaint reporting that local prosecutors were pressured to rush through a case against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Majority status will allow them to investigate that rather than simply request information.
If Blanche continues doing Trump’s vindictive bidding, Aronberg believes that impeachment will become more plausible.
“Blanche […] is going to read the room, and I think that you'll see fewer of these,” Aronberg predicted.
Before becoming Attorney General, Blanche served as Trump’s defense attorney alongside Emil Bove during the New York criminal trial. Trump retained different appellate attorneys from the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
Meanwhile, Blanche — who lost the original case in court — will almost certainly brace himself for a new era of checks and balances in Washington, as his successors try to erase the criminal record of his boss.
Look out for live coverage of Trump’s appeal tomorrow on All Rise News.
Thanks for the insights and summary. It’s so good to have these things to think about what has become possible!
Justice and accountability now! Or never.