Democrats are preparing to open investigations into Elon Musk and Stephen Miller once they take control of Congress in January, a senior lawmaker said on Sunday. The inquiries would target two of the most powerful figures around President Donald Trump, setting up a confrontation between the new House majority and the White House.
California Representative Robert Garcia, who is in line to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee next year after the Democrats’ midterm election victory, said the inquiries will centre on Musk’s involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency’s firing of federal workers last year and Miller’s crucial role in Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.
Miller, newly appointed as White House chief of staff, is expected to press ahead with hardline border security, fuel culture wars and stonewall a Democratic Congress, according to the report. His elevation to the top staff job puts him at the centre of the coming standoff.
A fight the White House says it is ready for
The Democrats’ plans go beyond Musk and Miller. On Sunday, Hakeem Jeffries, who will become speaker of the US House in January, said Democrats would back impeachment proceedings against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a congressional process that could remove him from office.
The Trump administration has signalled it will not cooperate quietly. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the administration is set to battle the investigations, telling reporters: “If that’s what this new incoming leadership wants to do, we are ready.” He added: “If you work in this administration, you have a lawyer. It’s me.”
Garcia’s committee would have subpoena power, the ability to compel testimony and documents — tools that can turn political promises of oversight into months of hearings. The Department of Government Efficiency’s workforce cuts affected thousands of federal employees, and Democrats argue the public still has not had a full accounting of how those decisions were made.
The midterm results were described as a monumental censure of Republicans by voters, but with the new Congress not seated until January, both sides now have weeks to prepare. What is already clear is that oversight — of firings, of immigration policy and of the Pentagon — will be one of the first battlegrounds of the new session.
