Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s newly appointed White House chief of staff, Stephen Miller, will be targets of congressional probes when the Democratic Party takes control of Congress in January, a leading Democrat said on Nov. 8.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, said investigations will focus on Musk’s involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency’s firing of federal workers last year, and Miller’s role in Trump’s immigration policies.
When Democrats take control of both legislative chambers in January, they can nominate committee leaders and control who receives subpoenas. Defying congressional subpoenas can result in criminal charges.
“I think there’s a lot of interest, not just from our committee, but from committees across the Congress, to speak to Mr. Musk,” Garcia said.
“What happened with [the Department of Government Efficiency] in particular and with federal employees losing the jobs the way they did and people’s data likely being compromised, I think is very serious.”
Musk’s recent activity on X has not addressed Garcia’s specific CNN statements.
“Why are you going to investigate him? Do you think that he committed a crime?” CNN’s Dana Bash asked, referring to Miller.
Garcia said Democrats think “that Stephen Miller is the architect of this horrific, unjust policy happening across the country” in the way that folks are being treated.
“The way that he is going around creating immigration policy that separates families, that is causing people harm, that’s creating a detention process where a few large companies are profiting, the unconstitutional detention of people, the way that folks are losing their due process rights, that has to be investigated,” Garcia said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said some companies will face congressional investigations, but she did not name any.
“If you’ve been making your profits by cheating American families and scamming your investors, you better get ready for some investigations, serious ones,” Warren told CBS’s “Face the Nation” program.
On Nov. 6, Trump announced that Miller would become his chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles, who will move to another position.
The reshuffle followed significant Republican losses in the midterm elections that handed control of Congress to the Democrats.
Miller, the president’s deputy chief of staff and a vocal proponent of the administration’s mass deportations policy agenda, started his new post on Nov. 9.
Miller has been a chief proponent of the second Trump administration’s immigration policies.
“Americans [voted] overwhelmingly for mass deportation,” he said in an X post earlier this year. “Congress passed laws requiring it and then passed new legislation to fully fund it. The response of the Democrat Party and its activists has been to support and orchestrate violent resistance against federal law enforcement.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said he would back an impeachment of War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Jeffries told ABC’s “This Week” on Nov. 8 that “Hegseth has got to go.”
He said he will be discussing the potential resolution with all House Democrats on the morning of Nov. 10.
“But I believe there will be incredibly strong support for that resolution,” Jeffries said.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Nov. 8 that the Trump administration was prepared to battle the Democrats in Congress.
Blanche told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Nov. 8 that they have seen “outright threats” to target administration officials and allies over the past several days and weeks.
“Many, many [of the threats were made] by elected members of Congress and some senators against anybody that’s conservative and anybody that happens to be a Republican,” he said.
“You honestly think that all they’re doing is talking about their oversight obligations when they’re talking about going after basically every member of the Cabinet, they’re talking about impeachments, they’re talking about going after companies, private companies who happen to have made investments in this country over the past couple years?
“Every attorney general in history represents members of the administration. And this idea that Congressman Garcia comes out and says, oh, no, no, Stephen Miller needs his own personal lawyer, I would suggest he read the Constitution.”
Jack Phillips, Zachary Stieber, and Reuters contributed to this report.
