The Money War Was Built Before the Vote

A month before anyone voted, the law firms were already billing for it. BakerHostetler was advising corporate clients to build defensive playbooks for a Democratic House; Evercore ISI and Beacon Policy Advisors were flagging the highest-risk targets: AI labs, oil companies, pharma pricing deals, private prisons, and the companies that had written checks to the president's ballroom trust. ^[1] It was not prophecy. The map had been on the table since June. That June, House Democrats in the minority drafted a corporate-subpoena map aimed not at the White House but at the firms arranged around it. By August the target letters were out, to Alphabet, Paramount Skydance, the private-prison operator GEO Group, and 1789 Capital. ^[2][3] Robert Garcia, in line to chair Oversight, drew the line himself in August.

It should not be a concern. We're going to go after anyone that's harming the American public, anyone that's obviously involved in some sort of illegal activity with the Trumps, or supporting things that are unconstitutional. — Robert Garcia

The White House's reply that month was a shrug, "nonsense" from "attention-seeking losers," but the list kept growing. ^[3] The family's firms were on it: 1789 Capital and Dominari Securities, Eric Trump's Foundation Future Industries, Kushner's Affinity Partners and his $55 billion Saudi deal. ^[4][5] So were the banks around Jeffrey Epstein, with Senate Democrats planning a Finance Committee probe of JPMorgan's handling of his accounts. ^[6] Across those same months, the Justice Department was closing the seams that map now targets. The FBI's Washington field office anti-corruption squad was dismantled and the department's own anti-corruption section barred from opening new cases, a purge that ended a bribery probe touching lawmakers of both parties. ^[7] A settlement barred the IRS from auditing the president and his family. ^[5] In August the department's Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion letting private presidential advisers refuse congressional subpoenas by claiming executive privilege, the shield a president can invoke to keep advice confidential, which critics read as built against exactly this House. ^[8] Requests for the Epstein files from states and Congress were refused, the department citing victim privacy. ^[9] And the department mediated a settlement that folded Alphabet's money into the president's ballroom trust. ^[10] Alphabet is the one name on both lists: among the first companies to receive a Democratic target letter in August, and the one whose $22 million contribution was folded into a $24.5 million settlement of its lawsuit over the president's suspended YouTube account. ^[10][2] The midterm sweep didn't build either machine. It switched both on at once. A company in the president's orbit now faces exposure in both directions. The incoming Oversight majority has its name on a list for the check it wrote. And the attorney general has signaled counterinvestigations of anyone who threatens administration officials or companies.

They are not allowed to just go around threatening existing members of the administration, to go around threatening companies, and that’s what President Trump is extremely worried about and he should be. — Todd Blanche

That leaves the firm that hands documents to Congress in the department's line of sight too. Cooperation with one branch invites scrutiny from the other. Each side has made the other's pressure on donors the scandal. After the sweep, the president ordered the Justice Department to open a criminal inquiry into Democratic leaders.

By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately! — Donald Trump

By the time he said it, his own solicitations had been on the record since August: up to $50 million a head sought from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Lockheed, and Palantir for the ballroom trust, on top of a year in which his own administration targeted the left's donor networks. ^[10][11] For all the machinery, almost none of it has fired. Letters have gone out; none of the incoming majority's subpoenas has been issued. Everything about January is a forecast, and whether the privilege memo was built for this fight is a critics' reading the record does not settle. ^[8] What is already joined is in a court. Leon Black refused the committee's subpoenas, took the contempt vote, and on November 5, in the election's first days, filed a defamation suit against Garcia personally seeking more than $7.25 million. ^[12]

Leon Black is the center of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. — Robert Garcia

The first live battle of the money war is not a hearing. It is a private suit.