It is hard to fathom, after what seems like an infinite period of near-constant Trump analysis, but a simple fact emerged on Tuesday night: the period of serious investigation of Donald Trump is about to begin. There are a half dozen House committees that have the power to investigate Trump—Intelligence, Oversight, Ways and Means, and Judiciary, among others. The chair of any committee—always a member of the majority party—has wide latitude to pursue investigations, issue subpoenas, and compel testimony.

The news for the next year or longer seems likely to be dominated by a steady stream of coverage of the people closest to Trump as they testify before Congress under duress, or under a grant of immunity, or coverage of their refusal to speak at all for fear of incriminating themselves. At the same time, there could be regular reports about what the committee staff has found in subpoenaed records—perhaps Trump’s tax returns, his company’s internal financial documents, the records of his various oligarch partners in the former Soviet Union, and e-mails and other digital messages between Trump’s team and people in Russia.

For many Democrats—and quite a few independents, and even a few Republicans—this is a gleeful prospect. After two years of feeling powerless, they will see, for the first time, a sustained, powerful check on Trump’s power and a public investigation with teeth and tools. It is hard to imagine that a serious investigation into Trump’s businesses, campaign, and Administration won’t uncover a lot of damaging information.

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There is, however, something of a split among Democratic Party operatives. I spoke with many of them—most wouldn’t speak on the record about an intraparty battle—and learned that there are two (or maybe three) distinct and contradictory views among influential Democrats. Many are anxious to get going on these investigations as soon as possible. There is still a real possibility that the President colluded with the Russian government to sway an American election. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that his business and personal conduct has been so questionable that he could be compromised by multiple foreign governments. This is as serious a question as Congress could face, and needs to be investigated. Perhaps Robert Mueller will reveal all the information anyone could want, but maybe he won’t, and Congress cannot leave the investigation of the Administration to a special counsel who is, for all his hard-won independence, still a member of the administrative branch of government.

However, Democratic officials also have to think of the politics. And this is where the debate lies. Some told me they think investigations are not only good government but good politics. “When there is news about Trump’s corruption, about Russia, his poll numbers go down,” one former congressional staffer told me. “When there isn’t, his numbers go up.” In this line of thinking, Congress could move quickly, establish a real check on Trump’s power, and possibly reveal information that would damage his popularity enough to impede the Republican agenda.

Others warn of overkill. A series of polls conducted by Hart Research, a leading Democratic polling firm, and Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm, surveyed Americans about what they want to see in Congress next year. A majority rank real oversight of the Administration as one of their highest priorities, but many of these same people were skeptical of overly focussing on Trump and the possibility of impeachment. Geoff Garin, the president of Hart Research, said he believes that overzealous investigations, ones that move too quickly and aren’t based on solid fact, could hurt Democrats. “The more they are seen as partisan fishing expeditions, the greater the danger that Congress will be creating some sympathy for Trump that he doesn’t deserve,” Garin said.

This is the state of the debate. No Democrat would say there is no role for an investigation. But some argue for moving cautiously, only making claims that have been established according to strict legal standards. Others believe we already know enough to conclude that Trump is unfit to lead, may have engaged in criminal conduct, and must be checked.

There is another, more practical concern among some Democrats. Phil Schiliro spent decades in high-ranking positions on several key congressional committees, including as the chief of staff on the House Oversight Committee before he became President Obama’s chief legislative adviser. Investigative-congressional-committee chairs have enormous power, unique in the American political system, Schiliro says: they can unilaterally issue subpoenas and compel testimony.

For most of U.S. history, congressional-committee subpoenas have rarely been used. Schiliro oversaw several major investigations, including of Enron, Halliburton, and the tobacco industry, and never once used a subpoena. Then, in the nineteen-nineties, several Republican chairs used them constantly. One chair, Dan Burton, the Republican head of the House Oversight Committee, issued more than a thousand subpoenas. Schiliro hopes that congressional Democrats will not follow Burton’s lead, politicizing oversight and investigative tools so much that they become short-term partisan weapons, not tools for truth seekers. “They should go through the proper process,” he said. “Subpoenas should always be a last resort, not the first step.”

Others argue for a slow approach for political reasons. There is the view that going straight for Trump and focussing on his relationship with Russia could be a mistake. Instead, some told me, a smarter move could be to focus on Trump’s Cabinet members, already a source of remarkable stories of corruption and ineptitude. As one political veteran told me, “The normal rules of political gravity do seem to apply to Trump’s Cabinet,” meaning that even if Trump seems unscathed by scandals, his Cabinet secretaries are quickly damaged by them. If a clear pattern of Administration-wide corruption is established, perhaps it will be time to move deeper inward, focussing on the President.

Overriding all of these considerations are two figures, one silent, the other loud. Robert Mueller will at some point complete his investigation. The most common—and most boring—parlor game in Washington is to watch people who know little or nothing hold forth on what Mueller will find. There seem to be two main camps: he’ll reveal nothing, or he’ll reveal everything. And then there’s Trump. Alongside the observation that everything we have learned has come during a period when Democrats had little power, there is another question. All of Trump’s actions to date have come when he faced remarkably little formal opposition. How will he react to a coequal branch of government in the hands of a true opposition party?