A day after Democrats re-took the majority in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi knew she had a mandate. “We have a constitutional responsibility for oversight,” she told reporters. “This doesn’t mean we go looking for a fight. But it means that if we see a need to go forward, we will.”

Pelosi’s comments were hardly surprising. Democrats had campaigned on holding the president accountable by exercising congressional oversight and investigating the rampant corruption in his administration. Four days after taking back the House, the ever excitable Axios published what it deemed a “hit list,” containing “at least” 85 potential targets, including Trump’s tax returns, his family business, potential obstruction of justice and campaign finance violations, and his handling of issues like immigration and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Even more tangential concerns—Trump’s treatment of the press, his “Space Force”—were floated as potential subjects for inquiry. The prospect was so enticing it sent Mike Allen into an incoherent tizzy. The Democrats, he told his readers, are “preparing a ‘subpoena cannon’” which was, he helpfully noted, “like an arena T-shirt cannon”—but for subpoenas.

We’re now well over 100 days into the new Democratic majority. But, as Washington Monthly’s Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan reported on Wednesday, “only four committees—Oversight, Judiciary, and Financial Services and Intelligence (the last two jointly)—have authorized so much as a single subpoena” and “most committees have at most held a handful of hearings in which lawmakers directly interrogated Trump officials.” Chairs of powerful committees are allowing Trump officials to stall and, in some cases, flat-out refuse to appear before Congress. Calling himself “the most transparent president and administration in the history of our country by far,” while continuing to not release his tax returns President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the White House would be “fighting all subpoenas.” Earlier this week, Justice Department official John Gore and former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline became the latest Trump officials to decline to testify before House committees—the two refused to appear to answer questions surrounding the upcoming 2020 census and the granting of security clearances, respectively. Contempt charges are possible, but thus far House leadership has done little more than denounce Trump officials for ghosting them.

It’s a shameful abdication of duty at arguably the worst possible time. Leading House Democrats, most notably Pelosi and second-in-command Steny Hoyer, have hand-waved the question of impeachment, citing the presidential elections that are fast approaching. But basic accountability measures—subpoenas, hearings—could aid the Democratic effort to retake the White House and the Senate.



The elected Democrats’ decision to cautiously wield their newfound power, rather than race forward, stands in visceral contrast to the general population’s initial response. The first two years of Trump’s presidency were marked by a number of protests—of the administration’s travel ban, of attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, of Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, and of the GOP’s push for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Seemingly every major action the Trump administration took was met by vocal and visible resistance—sometimes coordinated, sometimes improvised.