In just one day, House committee chairs announced three new investigations into Trump.
Over the last two years, the House of Representatives was controlled by Republicans, who ran interference for Trump, ensuring there would never be any legitimate investigation into his mountain of misdeeds.
With control of the House now shifted to Democrats, the investigations are piling up. If it seems like new ones are being announced every day, that's because they are. In fact, yesterday saw three new investigations crop up.
Early on Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to the White House announcing an investigation into the Trump team's shoddy handling of the security clearance process.
Just a couple hours later, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) said his committee will look into whether Trump's tangled network of business dealings are influencing foreign policy decisions.
It's a logical choice for an investigation. We already know that Trump's D.C. hotel is a conduit for foreign money, particularly Saudi Arabian money, to make its way to Trump. Also, Trump is disturbingly willing to go easy on Saudi Arabia, even after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was likely personally ordered by that country's crown prince.
Also on Wednesday, we learned that House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) and House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) are teaming up to dig into Deutsche Bank. This line of inquiry likely feels very worrisome for Trump, given that special counsel Robert Mueller has already subpoenaed the bank for its records related to Trump and his family.
Schiff says that the bank is an "obvious place to start" in examining whether the Trump Organization laundered money. It is indeed an obvious place, as Deutsche Bank was recently fined several hundred million dollars for helping the Russians launder money. Additionally, that bank seems to be the only one that wants to lend money to the Trump Organization.
Trump is learning just how precarious his position is, and how much protection the GOP members of the House had provided. For someone with this much to hide, the next two years are going to be grueling.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
