The story

House Democrats are preparing investigations of President Donald Trump, his administration, and his family ahead of November's midterm elections, in which they are favored to regain the House majority. The Washington Post spoke to a dozen Democratic members and staffers poised to run committees who said they are planning probes of Trump's growing wealth in office, his remaking of the federal government, and his pursuit of his political enemies. In recent weeks, staffers have connected with outside groups for guidance on how to conduct effective investigations.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, who would likely chair the Oversight Committee in a Democratic-held House, said there is so much corruption and grift that it will take the entire House Democratic side to do investigations appropriately. Garcia's committee launched a running tracker of the Trump family's profits from cryptocurrency and foreign deals, calculating that Trump pocketed $2.25 billion from foreign payments in the first year of his second term. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who would lead the Judiciary Committee, has sought information about investments by 1789 Capital and American Ventures, venture capital firms linked to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and plans to investigate companies the Trump sons invested in.

Democrats say they plan to use lawsuits as a tool to compel testimony and documents, with Raskin telling CNN that in the majority, Democrats would have the ability to sue the Trump administration in a more effective way since they have not had standing to do so in the minority. White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement that Democrats have no agenda to improve the lives of the American people, just plans to obstruct and baselessly target President Trump's commonsense agenda. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he would block what he considers the Democrats' bad stuff for the remaining two years of his presidency, saying he would end up being a blocker.