Democrats are drawing up a list of companies, colleges, and law firms that cooperated with the Trump administration, planning investigations, according to a report from Axios. Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have been holding preliminary discussions about how to use congressional subpoena power if they retake the House after the 2026 midterms.
The institutions they’re eyeing include companies that entered funding agreements, universities that accepted federal contracts under the Trump administration, and law firms that took on Trump-related legal work. Senate Democrats have already interrogated lobbyists over who was raising money for a White House ballroom renovation. The pattern is clear: work with Trump, go on the list.
“While Democrats expect the Trump administration to fight back against investigations,” Axios noted, “companies, colleges, and other private citizens do not have the same institutional power to fight back.”
This playbook didn’t come out of nowhere. Schiff led the first impeachment effort against Trump in 2019, built on the allegation that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, a claim that collapsed under scrutiny but served its political purpose. He has since filed FOIA requests on 12 separate issues, from Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records to Qatar’s reported gift of a plane. The FOIA requests aren’t the story; the breadth of the opposition research operation is.
If Democrats retake the House in November, the list that Schiff, Whitehouse, and Blumenthal are assembling right now will become the first thing the new House Judiciary Committee opens. That’s not speculation. That’s what they’re telling reporters.
