On Wednesday, however, a federal judge in New York ruled against Trump’s effort to block a subpoena from House Democrats of his financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One. That came a day after another federal judge rejected his bid to keep his accounting firm, Mazars USA, from turning over documents; that judge refused to stay his order pending appeal, and seemed incredulous at the administration’s arguments. NBC News reports that two other banks, TD and Wells Fargo, have already handed over documents. The process is moving much faster than Trump had hoped. Instead of eating up months, his refusals to comply have barely eaten up weeks.

So Trump is suggesting he won’t work with Democrats on anything until they drop their investigations. “It is not possible for them to investigate and legislate at the same time,” he tweeted. But being able to do both oversight and lawmaking is precisely how Congress is structured, and as veterans of any previous administration can attest, plenty can get done while Congress is investigating a White House.

There is also no chance Democrats are going to drop their investigations, and that’s where the finger trap comes in. By and large, the House Democratic caucus has been wary of impeachment. Even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report all but accused the president of obstruction of justice and suggested that Congress ought to act, most members were content to follow Pelosi’s slow approach and to avoid open calls for impeachment.

More recently, however, that has changed—and the spark has been the White House instructing former aides like Don McGahn to neither produce documents nor testify in response to subpoenas. It’s one thing to fire the FBI director to kill an investigation, pressure aides to lie, and try to fire the special counsel—you might very well get away with only harsh words for that—but start stepping on Congress’s prerogatives, and its members start to get very angry very fast. Specifically, they start to demand impeachment inquiries.

If Trump were to follow through on his threat to not do anything with Congress until House Democrats drop their investigations, things could get even dicier. Within the next few months, the debt ceiling will need to increase and the government will need to be funded. Democrats might have been tempted to hold those bills hostage, just as Republicans have done in the past—but now Trump has given them an opportunity to pass an increase and a spending bill and dare the president to call their bluff. A senior government official told CNBC that the debt ceiling and funding are not subject to Trump’s ultimatum, but the president has demonstrated again and again that only he can speak for himself. And if he doesn’t act, and the U.S. defaults or shuts down? It could be fodder for another article of impeachment.