Democrats are already planning how they will use their new oversight powers should they win back one or both houses of Congress in November. The first step in any plan, of course, is sending a slew of subpoenas to the White House. But there are additional, likely more productive ways to hold the Trump administration accountable. Congressional Democrats need to take a page from the Watergate investigation and follow the money.
That means investigating the ties between Trump and corporate America – and probing the companies themselves. “Some Democrats are cautioning that the party shouldn’t use investigative authority too broadly against corporate America to avoid steering into retribution,” Politico reported Monday. That caution is mistaken. In fact, congressional investigators may find the most effective oversight targets sit not in the White House, but on Wall Street.
Many in corporate America have realized that Trump’s pay-to-play administration has created opportunities for profitability.
Trump officials have reportedly spent months building up a legal strategy for congressional oversight after the midterms. The administration’s strategy is centered on invoking executive privilege and defying congressional oversight — including subpoenas — even going so far as issuing a new Justice Department memo purporting to shield non-governmental “outside advisors” from responding to oversight subpoenas.
Many in corporate America have realized that Trump’s pay-to-play administration has created opportunities for profitability. While making several multimillion-dollar contributions to the president’s projects, Chevron has gained the rights to vast oil reserves in Venezuela while families pay more than $4 at the pump.
Tobacco company Reynolds donated millions to a pro-Trump super PAC, including $5 million just before the FDA lifted health and safety restrictions on certain vaping products. The New York Times reported that the rule change was made despite opposition from the FDA’s then-commissioner, after the president had lunch with industry lobbyists and executives from Reynolds, another tobacco company.
And in March 2025, food company Taylor Farms’ parent firm donated $1 million to the same pro-Trump super PAC less than a week before the FDA delayed food traceability rules to make it harder to trace foodborne outbreaks. A year later, an outbreak of cyclospora linked to Taylor Farms led to two deaths and 13,000 illnesses. (In each case, the White House has claimed the donations did not affect the policy decisions. Chevron and Taylor Farms have issued similar denials, while Reynolds has not commented.)
Document requests and subpoenas to private companies don’t trigger the same executive privilege fights that the White House is gearing up for.
Pursuing corporate targets lets congressional investigators expose this corrupt system more quickly. Document requests and subpoenas to private companies don’t trigger the same executive privilege fights that the White House is gearing up for. What’s more, corporations are incentivized to cooperate with Congress, as noncompliance carries significant legal and reputational costs that few companies are willing to bear.
Going through corporate America to investigate government corruption has a long tradition in American politics. In 1922, during President Warren Harding’s administration, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leased federal oil reserves to private companies in exchange for substantial bribes. In its investigation, Congress subpoenaed Mally Daugherty, the president of a bank involved in the scandal. Daugherty refused to appear before a Senate committee, for which he was convicted of contempt of Congress. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction and Congress’s investigative powers over the private sector. Since that case, corporations and executives have been on notice that congressional oversight may come calling.
House Republicans used this power during the Biden administration, hauling up corporate CEOs to testify about the content moderation by social media companies and the ESG policies of investment banks. Their hearings even resulted in the resignation of two university presidents.
It was an effective approach then, and it is now. Any company that received policy favors from the Trump administration should be a target for congressional Democrats.
Congress has myriad paths for investigations. Oil and gas companies — some of Trump’s largest donors —have received leases to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, on the California coast, and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as a rollback of auto emissions rules. Tech companies have donated millions to Trump projects, while he issues executive orders fast-tracking the permitting and development of data centers. The CEO of crypto company Binance received a pardon of his criminal conviction after he helped set up Trump’s family crypto company (here again, the parties claim those two actions are unrelated). Despite the president’s avowed support for his disastrous tariffs, time and again the White House has exempted companies that kowtowed to the president while punishing those who did not. And of course, Congress should scrutinize every single company that contributed to Trump’s ballroom.
Each of these investigations would give Democrats ample opportunity to hold corporate and government actors accountable.
In recent focus groups, conducted by Hart Research for Groundwork Action, participants didn’t draw clear lines between corporate corruption and government corruption. Rather, they believe the American system is corrupt — and that the corruption comes at the expense of everyday Americans.
While the administration will drag its feet and refuse to comply with congressional oversight, the big corporations and special interests that have been willing partners with Trump over the last two years should not be able to evade scrutiny. To investigate corruption, Congress isn’t limited to a protracted fight with the administration. They just have to follow the money — straight to Wall Street.
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