WASHINGTON — Democrats will retake control of Congress in January after a midterm election that saw them gain a resounding majority in both chambers. With such a dramatic shift to the balance of congressional power will come investigations. Lots and lots of them.
Here are the New England Democrats who will likely be involved in high profile probes into the White House, and what issues they are likely to prioritize.
Senator Elizabeth Warren
The Massachusetts senator has long espoused the kind of populist economic message that propelled Democrats’ latest reclamation of Congress: Working people are footing the bill for corporate kickbacks.
As the expected chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Warren will likely lead investigations into the large corporations that donated money to the president’s inauguration fund, White House Ballroom project, or his political action committee, MAGA Inc., and received preferential treatment by the Trump administration.
Senator Bernie Sanders
The independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats will likely lead the wide-reaching Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Sanders should be at the forefront of probes into Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies, especially Kennedy’s changes to vaccine protocols.
Representatives Stephen Lynch and Ayanna Pressley
Boston’s two US Representatives also share a common assignment to the powerful House Oversight Committee, which is the body’s main investigative arm. As such, Pressley and Lynch will have a broad mandate to look into a whole host of issues.
Chief among them, Lynch said, was digging deeper into the Epstein files.
“The Department of Justice has been withholding about 3 million of those documents,” Lynch, currently the longest-tenured Democrat on the committee, told the Globe. “Our oversight mission on that topic would continue and would probably intensify going forward.”
Pressley said Democrats are also eager to delve into malfeasance amid the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
“We know there can never be justice. Justice would mean that there would have been no terror, there would have been no injury, no harm, no death,” she said. “But there must be accountability.”
For Pressley, control of Congress and its investigative power is not about punishing President Trump, but advancing Democratic political priorities.
“What I will be pushing for is that we not moderate our aspirations — not because I say so — because the people are demanding that we not default to an unjust status quo,” she said.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Becca Balint
Whitehouse of Rhode Island is expected to claim the gavel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, with longtime Illinois Senator Dick Durbin retiring. The committee primarily oversees the Department of Justice and executive and judicial nominations.
“Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Trump administration have gutted the committee’s oversight and confirmation authority,” he said in a statement. “There needs to be accountability for years of Republican bad behavior, and a hard reset on the nominations process next Congress.”
Vermont’s lone representative in the House sits on the Judiciary Committee, the body that oversees the federal government’s administration of justice. The committee is expected to be fertile ground for investigations, especially because it is often where impeachment proceedings originate.
“We are very cognizant of the fact that a conviction in the Senate is very difficult,” Balint said. It takes a two-thirds majority in the Senate to impeach an official. “That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be instances where we may want to pursue impeachment. I mean, certainly we have a [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth impeachment resolution that’s hanging out there.”
Among the other topics Balint believes are worth looking into: “the slush funds, the pay-to-play environment that’s been created, this whole scheme of selling pardons, crypto corruption, [and] foreign influence,” she said.
Senator Ed Markey and Representative Richard Neal
Neal, who is the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, is the only House lawmaker on this list who is likely to be in charge of an entire committee come January. When he regains the Ways and Means gavel, the longtime congressman from Springfield will have control over all things relating to taxes, trade, and tariffs.
“One of the things that I would be very interested in is investigating these tariffs,” said Neal. “Narrowing what Trump has done with tariffs would be good public policy.”
Markey could also wade into the tariff investigation waters as the new chair of the Senate Small Business Committee. Over the past two years, much of his work on the committee has revolved around how Trump’s economic policy has driven up costs for small business owners.
Although probes into Trump’s tariff policy will likely receive much fanfare, Neal pointed out that his committee also commands oversight of broadly popular government programs that impact the cost of living, which Trump has scaled back like Affordable Care Act tax credits, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Social Security.
“We want to measure our oversight with the other realities,” he said. “If we’re going to build a durable majority for years to come, which I hope this election will prescribe, then we need to have a positive agenda that the American middle class [and] working class are willing to come back to.”
Senator Jack Reed and Representative Bill Keating
Trump’s decision to launch a war in Iran also contributed to the affordability crisis — most notably at the gas pump — that helped usher in a blue wave this election season. It will be the responsibility of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, of which the Bourne Democrat Keating is a member, to investigate the motives for a war that Congress never authorized.
The investigations, Keating said, “just won’t be on Trump. It’s going to be on a circle of his friends, partners, and people that bought influence with him. And that will include his family because they’re getting no-bid defense contracts.”
As the likely chair of the Subcommittee on Europe, Keating said he will also dig into the war in Ukraine.
Expect Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed — who has been a major critic of Trump’s handling of both wars — to be a leading figure pushing investigations into military operations as the next chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Senator Maggie Hassan and Representative Seth Magaziner
Hassan of New Hampshire will become chair of that body’s Committee on Homeland Security. In a social media post on election night, she hinted at a probe into the tenure of fired Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and her chief of staff, Corey Lewandowski.
“I am focused on how to keep our country safe, secure, and free, fight the corruption that is raising costs, and rein in the abuses of power under this administration,” Hassan said in a statement.
Magaziner, of Rhode Island, currently sits on the Homeland Security Committee and said he hopes they take a holistic approach to investigating DHS.
“We need to know to what extent has the administration been neglecting counterterrorism, cybersecurity, port security, and other important components within the DHS enterprise because they have shifted resources and attention away from those vital missions in service of their extreme and out of control management of ICE,” he said.
Magaziner, who also serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he would also like to see an investigation into Trump’s many construction projects in Washington and beyond.
“Desecrating public properties that are the property of the American people that President Trump treats as his own personal playthings, that is something that I think will be an area of focus for sure.”
Representative Chellie Pingree
Pingree, of Maine, sits on the House Appropriations Committee, which regulates federal expenditure. She anticipates a full suite of investigations relating to the Department of Government Efficiency, including “where the cuts were made, who was put in charge, how decisions were made,” she said. “There is a long list of damage that DOGE did and the impacts that it continues to have, both on our budget process, but really on deeper issues.”
Pingree, a leading congressional advocate for the arts, said she also imagines the Kennedy Center will be top of mind.
“Since the Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center, there’s been virtually no transparency, which is unheard of with the appropriations that go there and the enormous amount of funds that have been directed there to do the renovations,” she added.
After Democrats promised change and were delivered a sweeping victory by voters in the midterms, Pingree said, “they’re going to want to see that we’re fighting back, and that we’re trying to undo the damage that this administration has done.”
Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at julian.sorapuru@globe.com. Follow him on X @JulianSorapuru.