Democrats just unveiled their first move against Trump with their new House majority

With the Democrats projected to win back control of the House of Representatives, the entire game has changed when it comes to holding the Trump administration accountable for its actions.

Now that the major committees in the House will be chaired by Democrats, some of the Congressional representatives about to assume power are not afraid to show how they’ll hold the president’s feet to the fire.

Congressman Richard Neal (D-MA), the next Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee if the projections are correct, wasted no time in announcing that his first act as chairman will be to subpoena Trump’s tax returns.

With the Ways and Means Committee possessing the legal authority to requisition the president’s tax returns directly from the IRS, the question will be whether Trump will put up a legal fight to try to prevent the committee from accessing the info.

With so many unanswered questions remaining about the president’s finances, including how much of his money derived from Russian sources, how much money and how much debt he truly has, and whether he is profiting from illegal foreign emoluments, access to the elusive tax returns means that a now empowered House can finally begin real investigations of the Trump administration’s endless instances of corruption and act as the check on presidential and executive branch excesses in a way that the Republican enablers who controlled the chamber during the first two years of the Trump era studiously avoided doing.

Of course, nothing will officially change until the new Congress is sworn in in January, and with the Mueller investigation ongoing, a lot can happen between now and then, but all of this bodes very well for the end of the most blatant abuses of power emanating from the White House as the president finally gets an effective check on his powers and the intent of the framers of the constitution is restored.

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Vinnie Longobardo

is the Managing Editor of Washington Press and a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile, & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.