Op-Ed: Democrats should use their Senate majority to expose Republican corruption

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In the winning re-election of Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Democrats now have a 51-49 majority heading into the next Congress. Under a 50-50 Senate, each party sits the same number of members on committees. With a 51-seat majority, Democrats will now outnumber Republicans at the committee level for the first time in the Biden presidency. Most importantly, it means that Senate Democrats can now exercise the reins of their oversight authority unilaterally. They don’t need Republican votes to issue subpoenas or take depositions.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives are really proud of their intentions to use their new majority, however narrow, to start an oversight tsunami targeting the Biden administration and the Bidens family. On Tuesday, Republican Leader (at least for the moment) Kevin McCarthy released an exhaustive list of administration targets including Hunter Biden, the Justice Department, the FBI and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Republican playbook is a simple one: They will use their executive authority to initiate actions and confrontations that will attract media attention and keep the Biden administration and Democrats on the defensive. Republicans in Congress are banking on the idea that the media will do their dirty work and report their oversight overreaches as legitimate instead of what they are: taxpayer-financed witch hunts.

That’s why it’s so important that Senate Democrats embrace their newfound majority margins and exercise their oversight authority as well. Giving Republicans a clear field to dominate the administration conversation is a big mistake that could hurt Democrats by the time we get to 2024. Through the extraordinary work of Jan. 6 Select Committee, we have seen how effectively administration, when done right, can affect public opinion. This committee, incidentally, is about to be disbanded and then investigated by House Republicans.

Republicans like Rep. James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, plans to use the indictments first, obtaining evidence of a second crusade against the president and his family. Senate Democrats have no reason not to turn on Republicans by investigating the conflicts of interest created by Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner during their time in the White House.

Documents recently released by Congress show that foreign countries are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on President Trumps hotel at the same time they are trying to influence our foreign policy.

Records obtained by Congress exposed that when agents had to stay at Trump hotels, Trumps companies charged the Secret Service five times higher than the government rate, costing taxpayers tax of more than $1.4 million.

Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner received a $2 billion investment from a fund controlled by the Saudi crown prince.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a report detailing 3,400 examples of Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest.

Let’s be very clear here: This is not a both sides situation.

If Senate Democrats do pursue this kind of oversight agenda, it will be based on facts, based on investigative work that has already produced volumes of documents, testimony and indisputable examples of Trump’s conflicts of interest and of his family at that time. It is worth noting that unlike Ivanka Trump and Kushner, Hunter Biden has never served in the federal government in any capacity. The investigations that Republicans will launch are conspiracy theory-driven nonsense designed to discredit their political opponents.

I understand that the Democrats’ impulse may not want to engage in this kind of administration battle, but they should know that battle is coming for them anyway. It would be a costly tactical mistake to allow the Republicans to have an open field. Trumps blatant corruption has given Democrats more than enough ammunition for fruitful administration inquiries, which should force Republicans to answer for their hypocrisy.

The only question is: Are Senate Democrats ready to step up, or will they yield to House Republicans?

Kurt Bardella is a contributing writer to Opinion. He is a Democratic strategist and former senior advisor for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. @KurtBardella

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