Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Sunday that White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, and several other Trump allies are on the committee’s target list for investigations once the new Congress is sworn in this January. When CNN host Dana Bash asked him to identify the supposed crimes, Garcia didn’t name one. His answer was limited to a description of Miller’s conduct as “unconstitutional, unjust, and possibly illegal.”
The exchange took place on the November 8th broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union.” Bash opened by citing Garcia’s earlier statement that Miller should “lawyer up” and asked why the congressman planned to investigate the chief of staff. Garcia is set to assume the Oversight chairmanship in January, a post that carries subpoena authority.
Garcia called Miller “the architect of this horrific unjust policy happening across the country in the way that we are treating folks.” He cited Miller’s description of Alex Pretti, a Minnesota man who was shot and killed while scuffling with federal immigration agents, as “an assassin,” along with the administration’s broader immigration and deportation policies. Garcia said those matters “deserve oversight and investigation” and that Miller is “at the center of the major policy decisions that are happening in the administration.”
Bash then asked whether Garcia believed anything Miller did was criminal. “That is, look, what’s important is we believe that he’s been at the center of actions that are unconstitutional, unjust, and possibly illegal, so we’re of course going to investigate that,” the congressman replied. As Trending Politics reported, Garcia didn’t identify a particular statute, charge, or specific illegal act.
Attorney General Todd Blanche addressed the “lawyer up” remark during a Sunday appearance on Fox News. “You have Garcia saying minutes after Stephen Miller was promoted to be the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, telling him to lawyer up. Well, I’ll tell you what. Stephen Miller has a lawyer. It’s me,” Blanche said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has separately vowed to target law firms and businesses that “collaborate” with the Trump administration. Raskin said the focus includes firms that entered agreements after executive orders issued early in President Donald Trump’s second term. Those orders targeted firms over their representation of certain clients and personnel decisions, and multiple firms agreed to provide free legal services aligned with administration priorities, modify diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and make other concessions.
Raskin named Paul Weiss among the firms in question. “The law firms that you mentioned, we know that there were many heroic law firms that have stood up against all of the lawbreaking and then the attempt to shake them down for the time of their partners and of their young associates, and yet there are major law firms in America, including Paul Weiss, that have capitulated to these coercive tactics by Donald Trump and have basically surrendered and made all kinds of outrageous concessions,” Raskin said.
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Watch Robert Garcia’s remarks to Bash here:
As HuffPost reported, Garcia dismissed the attorney general’s remarks in his own interview with Bash. “We should always remember that Todd Blanche was Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, and he continues, obviously, to play that role. All he wants to do is protect Donald Trump, is protect Donald Trump’s cabinet and administration officials. That is not his job; I want to remind him,” Garcia said. “Look, they can come after us however they want. We’re not going to be intimidated.”
Posting the clip on X, Eric Daugherty zeroed in on Garcia’s unfinished answer, quoting the congressman mid-sentence: “All those committing crimes need to be…” The post delivered the verdict: “In a MAJOR mask-off moment, incoming House Oversight Chair Robert Garcia (D) is UNABLE to say which crimes are being committed by Trump allies and Stephen Miller — he’s just investigating for a FISHING expedition.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.