‘there Will Be Accountability’

On any given day, there is no shortage of things for Rep. Robert Garcia and his staff to investigate. As the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Garcia has tangled with the Trump administration on everything from the release of the so-called Epstein files to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis.

And surprisingly for a member of the House minority, he’s gotten results. Well before Congress passed a law requiring the release of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Garcia maneuvered within the Oversight Committee to slap a subpoena on the Justice Department, and he kept up the pressure on the Trump administration as material was released, including from the Epstein estate. The documents have proven to be a headache for President Donald Trump, as well as a host of others who have found their personal connections to Epstein aired in public.

If Democrats retake the House in November, Garcia is poised to play an even larger role for the party as the likely chair of the House Oversight Committee — historically one of the most important perches for the party out of power in the White House. In the majority, he would have full subpoena power at his disposal, though getting the administration to comply is another matter.

But first, Democrats have to win.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine about his priorities now and going forward, Garcia said Democrats were likely to make oversight of the administration a major part of their midterm campaign and previewed the line of attack for the party.

“This is the most corrupt president to ever serve in the history of our country, and it’s the most corrupt administration to ever exist in the history of our country,” he said. “There’s no scenario where this shouldn’t be at the center of our [work] moving forward.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Justice Department released more than 3 million pages from the Epstein criminal investigation on Friday. You and other Democrats have criticized the release as insufficient. At this point, what would it take to actually put all of this to bed?

It would take, first, the DOJ complying with the law. Justice for the survivors, which for them has been pretty clear from day one, is to ensure that we are able to expose the co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein but also expose the men that abused and raped and trafficked girls and children and women.

The survivors have been clear that they want to be able to understand and know what the DOJ has on them. All of that, for me, looks like justice. It’s not what we have right now.

I’ve said from day one that this has been a White House cover-up. That cover-up continues, and the difference between the DOJ’s position and ours is that the DOJ thinks this investigation is over. We think it’s just getting started.

We have so much work to do ahead of us, and the fact that only 50 percent of the files have been released is not just against the law, it violates a subpoena that we’ve had in place since the summer. Of course, it’s been really harmful to the survivors, as they have said themselves.

If I understand correctly, what the deputy attorney general said on Friday at the press conference was that they had collected 6 million pages and had ultimately identified 3.5 million pages that were actually responsive to the law. Is it your position that the material that the DOJ initially collected — even if they deemed it unresponsive to the law — is material that you want to have?

I don’t know if I agree with that assessment. Todd Blanche is carving out [material] and pointing to portions of the Transparency Act, the law that passed, that don’t apply to the subpoena that got passed in the summer.

For example, he uses the example of ongoing investigations. Well, the subpoena that was passed by Oversight Democrats doesn’t speak to ongoing investigations. He can’t pick and choose what he wants to release.

Where some folks are getting it wrong — certainly the DOJ — is that there is a subpoena that’s been in place since the summer. They have been unresponsive, and they have not responded to that — essentially completely brushed it aside.

They put out 30,000+ documents as related to the subpoena and have yet to respond to the rest. They can’t point to the law and forget about what’s in the actual subpoena. That’s a huge, critical difference. We’ve been making that point. We’re going to continue to ramp up that point.

Another example that Blanche points to [is that] there’s a piece in the law that talks about inter-agency communication. That’s not in the subpoena.

There are two tracks in getting the Epstein files released: the Transparency Act, which Blanche is using language to limit disclosure, and the subpoena, which they cannot do because those are not carve-outs. We need those documents.

If that is true, what was the point of passing the law?

Look, I think that it got everybody on record. I think it strengthened and moved the issue forward. To have both in place have really complemented each other and certainly worked to put a lot of pressure on the DOJ. So I think they’ve both been helpful.

The law was written by not just Congressman [Ro] Khanna [D-Calif.], but also by Thomas Massie [R-Ky.]. They made decisions on how it was written.

We’re going to begin to elevate the pieces of the subpoena that the DOJ is ignoring, and that will be pretty evident, I think, in the weeks ahead.

What we’ve seen so far — understanding that this process is not over — has not revealed any new, direct evidence of criminal conduct on the part of anyone, including the people who Rep. Khanna has referred to as “the Epstein class” of rich and powerful criminals that he and Massie were going to expose.

Do you hold out in your mind the possibility that there is no list of prominent people to reveal who conspired with Epstein or participated in Epstein’s child sex trafficking and abuse? Or are you certain that there’s more to disclose?

I think that I have heard enough from survivors directly, including [about] co-conspirators and men who participated in the abuse of women and girls. And I believe them. I strongly believe that information is in the Epstein files.

Now, look, there’s not one document — a list of everyone. It doesn’t exist that way. But is there information in the broader collection of documents that points to and exposes the criminal behavior of men who did the abuse? I don’t think there’s any question that that’s in the documents. I’ve heard that from folks within the government. I’ve heard that from survivors. That’s what we’re trying to get to as well.

What’s interesting has been the DOJ’s position that there’s not enough information for criminal convictions. As far as I’m concerned, the DOJ cannot be trusted. It’s corrupt. That’s just been the case from day one.

I think it’s also true that the White House has been trying to hide the release of the files. Anyone can just look at the timeline. You campaign on releasing the files, then you’re president, you try to ignore them. Then your DOJ and your attorney general say, “I have them ready to be released.” Then they release [something] to a bunch of influencers, which is really nothing. Then they say there’s nothing to release. In fact, the case is closed.

It wasn’t until then, when Oversight Democrats began their subpoena process and began pushing the issue forward, that things started moving forward. We have been able to publish information, photos, emails. Accountability has begun, which is important for folks to also note.

When you think about former Prince Andrew, when you think about revelations that have happened around Larry Summers — there have been consequences in both of those cases, thanks to the release of the files. Now you’re seeing additional debate about other prominent folks.

We need more information about those folks. If there’s evidence that leads to abuse and trafficking, then those folks need to be exposed. I do believe that accountability has begun, but there’s an enormous amount more to do.

There’s two pieces. One is the accountability to the men that did the abuse, and, of course, to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, and then the cover-up. We need to know why the White House has been so obsessed with covering up the Epstein files.

Do you ever worry that maybe Democrats are feeding into the sorts of conspiracy theories that, until a year ago, were prevalent on the far-right? 

We have to be very careful about focusing on facts.

I get a lot of incoming [information] from a lot of folks online, through emails, through people that reach out to the committee, that we have to verify. I personally try not to lean into things that we can’t verify.

But we try to follow leads. If someone has something that piques our interest, we’re going to investigate. We’re investigating things all the time, and sometimes they don’t lead anywhere. Other times, we park it and investigate further if more information develops. And other times, we verify that it’s just not true.

We have an incredible team of lawyers and folks with a lot of experience in research that are constantly working on all these cases and trying to verify what’s there. We focus on that.

But I think it’s important for folks to know that people are really interested in this. When I go home, I get asked more about this than almost anything else. I think about my barber, who’s very non-political, has never asked me about health care, has never asked me about taxes. He votes on and off. But he always asks me about the Epstein files. It’s broken through beyond just traditional media that we all consume.

This is something that folks are picking up in entertainment spaces, in pop culture, when they’re on YouTube, when they’re on social media. There’s high interest, and it’s, quite frankly, bipartisan interest.

On any given day, you’re inundated with things that you could investigate, and that’s partly a result of the White House’s “flood-the-zone” strategy. Just this morning, House Oversight Democrats issued a report about the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. How do you determine what you want to focus on?

We have a good team. We’re constantly talking about what to focus on. The committees have incredibly smart and committed members, some who I’ve learned an enormous amount from, others who are classmates of mine, who I’m personally very close to.

I talk a lot to the committee. We make joint decisions together. I believe my leadership style is to listen to folks and bring people in and have shared conversations. That’s all really, really important to me.

How coordinated are you with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, since House Oversight is such an important perch?

Pretty coordinated. I have a great relationship, obviously, with the leader and I keep him regularly updated. He shares with me his perspective. He’s very supportive of the Epstein investigation and the work that we’re doing.

We’re well coordinated with the efforts of the broader caucus. That’s important for me, for us. We’re part of a much bigger effort across the House, and I think folks understand that.

Aside from the Epstein files, I know you’re interested in affordability. Over and over again, Americans tell pollsters that their number one concern in the country is the economy.

You’ve drawn attention to issues surrounding so-called “algorithmic pricing” among retailers. There is a debate about the merits of the practice and who it actually hurts, but how did you come to this issue, and what are your concerns?

One role of Oversight is that we’re going to investigate corruption. That is going to dominate a lot of our work. Corruption around the Epstein files, corruption of the Trump family, corruption of agencies like DHS and Health and Human Services. That dominates a lot of our investigations.

When I ran for [Oversight] Ranker, I told the rest of the caucus that the committee is Oversight and Government Reform. I think we don’t focus enough on trying to make the government better. Part of that is, what can we do to make life better for the American public? How can we be reformers? How can we focus on issues around innovation? How can we focus on taking on big corporate interests that might be hurting the American public?

The example that you gave is an example of that. We can investigate larger corporations, the organizations that are also harming consumers — large companies using data to manipulate pricing, foreign interests that are driving up the cost of housing, contracts through the Department of Defense that are going to friends and family of members of the administration. Focusing on cost, not just groceries, but think about things like utilities that are skyrocketing across the country. There’s a lot of examples where we can use Oversight to tackle affordability, and that’s a big part of our agenda.

How much is the need for oversight of the Trump administration going to play in the Democrats’ midterm campaign?

I think it’s going to play a big role, and it should. This is the most corrupt president to ever serve in the history of our country, and it’s the most corrupt administration to ever exist in the history of our country. There’s no scenario where this shouldn’t be at the center of our [work] moving forward.

As Democrats, we’ve got to focus on three big things: taking on government corruption, ensuring that health care is affordable and accessible to all Americans and a real focus on the affordability crisis. Those three things are really going to dominate our debate in the midterms — and they should — and I think corruption is going to be at the center of that.

If Democrats retake the House and you become the chair of House Oversight next year, are those items what your oversight priorities are going to be?

Yeah. Taking on corruption and affordability are going to be the two key areas that Oversight is going to be working on. The affordability piece is also about, what can we do to make life better for the average American using the tools of investigation?

You mentioned your interest in making the government work better. It doesn’t seem like we have a particularly good sense of what DOGE and Elon Musk actually did to the government last year and what the consequences have been from the loss of hundreds of thousands of federal employees. 

I’m sure you saw this recent revelation from litigation about how a member of the DOGE team may have improperly shared Social Security data with an outside advocacy group rummaging around for evidence of supposed election fraud. Is this something you plan to investigate — what DOGE actually did — and if so, how?

We’re actually in the middle of that investigation. We’re putting out a major report on DOGE within the next 30 days or so, and that report is almost complete. [Garcia’s staff later confirmed to POLITICO Magazine that they currently plan to release the report on Feb. 12.]

We’re going to hold a field hearing in Virginia, Fairfax County. Our plan is to release that report at that field hearing and then also talk about issues that relate to federal workers.

DOGE was obviously an executive branch thing, but you’re in the minority right now. What are your investigative tools that allow you to put together a report like that?

We have access to not just public information, but good reporting. We have access to actual federal workers. We have access to folks within the government, whistleblowers — a variety of ways that we can also investigate and get information. And we have information that’s been sent to us by some of the agencies.

If Democrats retake the House, let’s say you start issuing subpoenas to the White House, and they just ignore them. This happened during the first Trump impeachment, and there were no real repercussions because Trump’s appointees run the Justice Department. Are there any tools or pressure points that you could use to enforce compliance?

One is the American public. People’s anger and frustration is incredibly powerful. We’ve seen that time and time again in the last year. They have really moved debate, and they have moved Trump and the administration.

The courts — people don’t realize that we’ve been successful 60, 70 percent of the time in the courts as it relates to major issues we’ve brought forward. Whether it’s been the House, or members that have been involved or have encouraged outside litigation.

As it relates to the subpoena and the DOJ, it’s complicated, because obviously they’re going to have final say. But I think public pressure — continuing to push, and reminding people that Donald Trump is not going to be the president forever.

Look, we’re going to get folks in front of Congress and folks in front of Oversight that have caused harm to the American public. They can try to delay and delay, but it is going to happen, and there will be accountability for the harms that they’ve caused.

The House Oversight Committee was involved in the inquiry that led to Trump’s first impeachment. There have already been some calls to impeach Trump over a host of issues. Do you expect your committee to be engaged in impeachment discussions next year?

Right now, we’re engaged in the impeachment of [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem. That’s where the focus of the caucus is right now. We’re in the minority in the House as a party, so our focus is believing there’s a path to impeaching Kristi Noem.

As far as what happens in the next Congress. I think we’ll wait and see. First, we should be very honest with ourselves: Trump commits an impeachable offense every week. The level of corruption — him breaking the Constitution and high crimes and misdemeanors — it’s constant. We also know that Trump controls a Senate and a House that would never impeach or convict him. So, I think we’ve got to push as hard as we can.

Nothing is ever off the table, but I think we’ve got to continue to push. Right now, it’s our job to expose the corruption, expose the crimes and get more of that information out to the American public.