Trump has recalled that he pardoned 1,500 supporters who were convicted or facing trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, doing so on his first day back in office.
Democrats drew a lesson from Trump’s first term: impeachment proceedings can consume Congress while letting the president portray himself as the target of a partisan campaign. That experience is shaping a preference for investigations over another rush to impeach.
Democrats also intend to answer Trump’s latest threat to issue pre-emptive pardons for allies. They have vowed to examine such pardons more closely and to look at donations that wealthy individuals and families made in hopes of receiving clemency.
The effort would focus on ethical concerns and conflicts of interest that Democrats say have marked Trump’s second term, during which the personal wealth of the president and his family has ballooned.
The president has mocked his rivals on the subject. At a recent rally in Oklahoma he told supporters: “I’ve become very good at beating them in impeachment.”.
Lawmakers are pushing for scrutiny of the Trump family’s large investments in the crypto industry and whether those investments offered a channel for foreign interests to influence the president.
The planned inquiries would therefore center on money, crypto and clemency rather than a repeat of the earlier impeachment fights, according to the same account of Democratic intentions.
Garcia’s tracker and document requests from Trump Jr. form an early paper trail Democrats say they would expand if they control relevant committees after the midterms.
Trump has not publicly detailed a response to the specific crypto and donation inquiries beyond his comments on impeachment and his record of mass pardons for Jan. 6 defendants.