GOP faces 'existential threat' with draft of post-midterm investigations: analysis

The Republican Party could face a slate of investigations should they lose the House or Senate after the midterm elections, an analyst claimed.

Whether the GOP loses control of both is yet to be seen, but one political analyst believes the party would be hit hard by the Democratic Party should the blue wave come. Writing in Newsweek, Jesus Mesa suggested that Donald Trump is keenly aware of what fate awaits him should his party fail to retain the House and Senate.

Mesa wrote, "Trump himself has acknowledged what could be coming. 'If we don't win the midterms, they'll find a reason to impeach me,' he told Republican lawmakers in January. What Democrats can actually do with power depends entirely on what they win.

"If they take only the House, they get subpoena authority and the ability to stage public hearings—powerful political theater with real consequences. But Republicans in the Senate can acquit every Cabinet official.

"Contempt citations can be challenged in court indefinitely. If Democrats win both chambers, that changes everything. The investigation machinery transforms from shadow preparation into an existential threat."

Mesa says that although there is a chance the GOP and the Trump cabinet could be investigated in the latter half of the president's term, it all depends on whether the Democratic Party holds a majority in the Senate.

"But none of this moves without the Senate," he wrote. "Ousted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem attracted 187 Democratic co-sponsors for impeachment articles—85 percent of the caucus.

"Before Democrats could move forward, Trump fired her, on March 5. Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said it would 'be malpractice on the part of Democrats' not to impeach her anyway.

"[Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)] said her handling of the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents 'is undoubtedly a high crime and a misdemeanor.' Yet with a Republican Senate, those articles likely die in the chamber."