House Democrats Have Identified 85 Trump Scandals to Investigate

Everyone knows that when Democrats take control of the House in January they will have a massive backlog of Trump scandals to investigate.

But until now nobody had come up with the exact number of scandals that are out there waiting to be investigated.

In a new report this morning, however, Axios actually discloses that the exact number of Trump scandals, compiled by them, is 85.

“There are at least 85 topics that Democrats have said they’d target — or are expected to target — in the forthcoming torrent of investigations and subpoenas to be directed at the Trump White House,” the report says.

Then it adds, “ Incoming House Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff told Axios that each committee plans to prioritize what they view as the most pressing topics, which he says range from Trump‘s potential business dealings with Russia to where things currently stand with North Korea.”

Democrats of course can’t issue 85 subpoenas all at once. But it’s encouraging that very intelligent people like Schiff and Nancy Pelosi have a master plan and know which topics they’d like to target first.

The goal of the Democrats is to make Trump look so bad that more and more Americans turn on him. It is smarter for them to hold hearings and bring Trump crimes and corruption into the public eye instead of starting with impeachment proceedings.

According to Axios, Democratic committee chairs will start  investigations into the following areas, which are included in the list of 85:

1. Trump’s tax returns, which he has refused to release for years despite promising to do so;
2. Whether Trump’s businesses got special favors from the Chinese government, including Ivanka Trump getting awarded trademarks during trade negotiations;
3. Other emoluments clause violations;
4. The Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant parents from their children at the border;
5. The administration’s response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico;
6. The hush money payments by Trump, through Michael Cohen, to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal;
7. The firing of James Comey as FBI Director;
8. Trump‘s firing of U.S. attorneys;
9. Cabinet secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks by cabinet members;
10. Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago in front of guests without security clearances;
11. Jared Kushner‘s ethics law compliance violations;
12. Election security and hacking attempts.

Axios also found that House Democrats previously made 64 different subpoena requests that were blocked by House Republican committee chairmen over the past two years. When ranking committee Democrats become chairs of the committee they will revisit these rejected subpoenas.

The biggest challenge for Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats will be to pick and choose and make sure they take the most important items to investigate first. If this is done correctly it will expose so much corruption and criminal behavior that it will probably bring down the Trump presidency.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.