The incoming majority should scrutinize the president’s alleged misdeeds rather than pressuring companies merely for doing business with him.
By some measures, the Trump administration ranks among the most corrupt in American history, and exit polls from NBC News, CNN, and the Associated Press indicate that corruption significantly shaped how many Americans voted on Tuesday. With the election behind us, Democrats intend to leverage the broad repudiation of the administration’s graft to push for a closer look at the White House’s dealing practices and the supposed conflicts of interest involving the president, his relatives, cabinet members, and supporters, starting in January.
“LAWYER UP” was the rallying cry from Rep. Robert Garcia (D–Calif.), who is poised to chair the House Oversight Committee. It took only one word—”Subpoenas”—for Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.), likely to lead the Senate Finance Committee, to emphasize the point.
Yet the rhetoric from Democratic leaders makes clear that their inquiries will extend beyond government decisions; they intend to scrutinize private companies and industries they view as allies of the president. In a statement released on Wednesday, Wyden pledged to go after banks, insurance firms, and the chief executives of pharmaceutical companies for their “role in hurting the American people and enabling Trump’s corruption.” Numerous colleagues echoed the sentiment, including Sen. Ed Markey (D–Mass.), who joked that there would be a need to “plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing” for Big Tech executives.
Anticipating a Democrats-led Congress, executives with even a tangential connection to the Trump administration have begun taking precautions to shield themselves from possible legal action. In October, Bloomberg reported that “companies with ties to President Donald Trump and his family” had started hiring “lawyers and lobbyists” in preparation for the prospect of congressional inquiries.
Semafor initially reported the Democrats’ plans to use corporate America as a back door to scrutinize the Trump administration back in June. “After enduring bruising investigative battles over testimony and documents during Trump’s first term, which often met resistance from the Hill, Democrats increasingly see the private sector as a more tractable subject due to companies’ legal obligations to respond to subpoenas,” wrote Semafor’s Nicholas Wu at the time.
During a shadow hearing conducted by congressional Democrats in July, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D–Conn.), the ranking member on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, indicated that his party would “investigate government contractors and businesses that have donated to the ballroom and other projects,” according to Bloomberg Government.
Going further, the outlet noted that Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D–N.M.) identified “Amazon, Apple, Coinbase, Google, HP, Lockheed, Palantir” as complicit in what she termed the “demolition of the White House,” signaling that the executives of these firms could be compelled to appear before Congress. This includes Elon Musk, a prominent ally of Trump and a notable figure within the Republican orbit in recent years. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that shares of Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla “fell sharply” amid expectations that he and his business dealings would face intense scrutiny from a Democrat-led Congress.
Democrats can disagree with the president’s decision to refurbish the White House and the manner in which it was carried out without branding every company that contributed to the Trump administration as corrupt. Donating to a political cause does not automatically render a company or its leaders corrupt. In fact, the Joe Biden–Kamala Harris inaugural committee accepted donations from many of these same firms, including Google, Amazon, and Lockheed Martin, which subsequently received billions in government contracts during the Biden administration.
Democrats—still stung by the failed and deeply unpopular investigations and impeachment efforts of Trump’s first term—may be adapting their strategy as they assume control. Yet chasing corporations solely because of their proximity to an elected official constitutes the wrong approach, especially given the numerous grounds—including the administration’s equity stakes in private companies and several alleged conflicts of interest involving the president and his inner circle—to pursue Trump directly.
Holding the Trump administration accountable for proven corruption is a commendable aim. However, turning allegations of corruption into a tool to discipline corporations would constitute an abuse of power and the sort of weaponization voters just rejected in the ballot box.
