Vol. II, No. 166 From Our Region to Yours
Politics

Steve Scalise Asks GOP Chairmen to Draw Up Democrats' Target List for Them

In a letter to every House Republican committee chairman, the outgoing majority leader asked them to inventory the coming investigations and identify who is most likely to be investigated.

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Steve Scalise, gray-haired, in a dark suit and light blue tie, speaks at a clear lectern with two microphones and one hand raised, in front of a blue backdrop printed with the Republican Jewish Coalition logo.
Steve Scalise speaking in Las Vegas in 2023. He has weeks left as majority leader. Photo: Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has a few weeks left in the majority. He has asked his committee chairmen to spend them preparing for the other side’s.

In a letter sent Thursday to every House Republican committee chairman, Scalise warned of what Democrats will do when they take the gavels in January. Fox News first obtained the letter, Just the News reported. The Washington Examiner also obtained it.

“The main focus of their new majority will be retribution and unleashing countless witch hunts under the guise of ‘oversight,’” Scalise wrote. “They will weaponize every single gavel to appease their radical base,” he added, according to the Examiner.

The assignment

Scalise asked the chairmen to “maximize our remaining days in power to prepare for what is coming,” The Hill reported.

The preparation has several parts. Chairmen are to take inventory of the investigations Democrats are expected to launch. They are to list the ones Democrats have already started.

They are also to identify the likely targets, The Hill reported. That is the list the incoming majority would otherwise have to make itself.

Democrats have not asked for it. They may get it anyway, through the usual channels.

The reading

Scalise also told the chairmen to study recent Supreme Court decisions on oversight. He pointed them to an August 2026 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel.

According to Legal Insurrection’s account of the letter, that opinion extended executive privilege to private advisers outside the executive branch. The privilege now covers people who do not work there. Oversight will cover the people who do.

The Examiner reported that Scalise also raised the prospect of a third impeachment of President Trump.

The other race

The letter has a second audience. Scalise is running for minority leader against Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Axios and The Hill reported. Speaker Mike Johnson is not running, The Washington Post reported.

Jordan chairs a committee. He received the letter. He has been asked to help prepare for a minority Scalise would like to lead.

It is a rematch of their 2023 race for speaker. Neither man got the job that time.

“Every chairman got homework,” said a congressional source known to this bureau only as Deep Throat Lozenge. “Two of them are also grading each other.”

Democrats take control of the House in January. The inventory is due before then.

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