Trump impeachment and congressional corruption investigations, Digi Mart USA News: The 120th Congress is set to open with a series of overlapping hearings examining alleged corruption tied to President Donald Trump, and the most likely outcome is that he will be impeached a third time. The hearings are expected to begin shortly after new members are sworn in on January 3.
Robert Garcia, who is in line to lead the House Oversight Committee, has referred to the “Trump crime family” and says he has four investigations ready. They cover the Trump family’s businesses, the conduct of ICE and Homeland Security, corporate corruption and Jeffrey Epstein.
Crypto activity is expected to be a central focus. Reuters puts the family’s earnings from four crypto ventures at $2.3 billion, even as the value of the meme coins they issued has crashed, leaving many investors with losses.
An investment fund linked to Emirati royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is putting $500 million into World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto firm, and Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun secured a place at a dinner with the President after buying around $20 million of Trump’s memecoin.
Jamie Raskin, expected to chair the Judiciary Committee, told the New Yorker that the executive branch had become “a money-making operation for what’s essentially a Mob boss.” Other areas likely to draw subpoenas include a $400 million jet from Qatar, the White House ballroom, which corporate donors that have received billions in federal contracts helped pay for, and no-bid contracts awarded to restore the Reflecting Pool in Washington.
The family’s business ties are also under scrutiny. Oversight investigators are expected to examine why Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
There will also be an inquiry into a $620 million government loan to a company that counts Donald Trump Jr.’s firm, 1789 Capital, as a major investor. Trump Jr.
will also face questions about why a Russian oligarch paid for his expensive wedding party in the Bahamas; after the news broke, the President said his son had repaid the money.
Other officials may also come under scrutiny. Tom Homan, Trump’s border tsar, allegedly took $50,000 passed to him in a restaurant take-out bag by undercover FBI agents running a corruption sting.
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager and later an official at Homeland Security, is accused of asking for money to help with visa applications from Middle Eastern countries. Richard Blumenthal, who will run the Senate’s investigations subcommittee, said, “The tentacles of corruption reach deep in this administration.”
Inquiries into Jeffrey Epstein could also affect Trump, although he is not the direct target. Last year Congress forced the release of the Epstein files after the Department of Justice had held them, with Democrats and Republicans joining to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Trump has largely ignored corruption allegations, and when asked directly by The New York Times he said he “found out that nobody cared” about conflicts of interest during his first term.
About half of voters in the AP’s exit poll said government corruption was “crucial” to their vote in the midterm elections, which brought heavy losses for Trump’s Republican Party. House Democratic leaders have been cautious so far.
Caucus chairman Pete Aguilar said there are “literally no meetings that we walk into as Democrats where people are talking about impeaching Donald Trump.” Hakeem Jeffries, the presumptive next Speaker, said he had yet to make up his mind.
Impeachment requires a simple majority in the House, while conviction in the Senate requires two-thirds of those present. Democrats are expected to hold 54 or possibly 56 Senate seats, short of the roughly 67 votes needed for conviction.
Even so, the article argues that once committees publish their evidence, the political cost of backing away from impeachment would be too high for most Democrats. Trump has called the prospect “impeachment for no reason” and said he was not worried “even a little bit.”
