White House Privately Braces for 2027 Blitz from House Democrats
The White House is quietly preparing for a Democratic takeover of the House by hiring lawyers to fend off a wave of legal challenges that could cripple the final two years of President Donald Trump’s time in office.
The preparations illustrate how the White House is privately preparing for the possibility that Democrats will regain at least one chamber of Congress in November, even as Republicans express confidence in public, according to people close to the administration.
A Democratic House next year could be reminiscent of 2018 fights that included impeachment inquiries of the president and multiple investigations into his inner circle.
Michael Williams, who served in White House roles in President Donald Trump’s first term and was deputy general counsel for the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, said staff is already preparing for another impeachment push even as Trump sets a broader strategy for dealing with Democrats.
“They’re ready for that eventuality,” Williams told Bloomberg Government. “I don’t think they’re ready to concede that that’s the likely outcome, but they’re certainly prepared in that event.”
Emma Doyle, former chief of staff at the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term who later worked in the West Wing, said the administration is already hiring experienced lawyers to help prepare officials for impeachment, as she did in the first term.
The return of advisers Jason Miller and Johnny DeStefano strengthens the White House for those fights, Doyle said, along with staff such as Mark Paoletta, the OMB general counsel who worked on impeachment defense in the first term.
Miller and DeStefano rejoined the White House last month to work on midterm strategy.
However, Democrats are facing their own problems.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) may find himself caught in the very blue wave he hopes to ride into power this November.
More and more Democratic candidates are telling Axios that they can’t promise to support his leadership.
It’s a big change from Jeffries’ once “untouchable” position in the Democratic Party just a few years ago. This could mean his path to the speakership will be harder than people thought.
Jeffries and his supporters say they aren’t worried at all about a mass defection. They point out that he hasn’t lost a Democratic vote in 20 speakers’ ballots, even though he is in the minority.
However, this group of new candidates could potentially be the first challenge to the previously unyielding support.
A group of viable candidates has made it clear that voting for Jeffries as speaker is not a given if the Democrats win the House.
Axios reported that more than 80 Democratic House candidates across the country were either not sure if they would support Jeffries’ leadership or were completely against it.
Since then, things have only gotten worse for him.
The tension was on display in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District. Democrat nominee Rebecca Bennett, who likely needs to beat Rep. Tom Kean (R-NJ) if Democrats have any shot at the majority, refused to commit to voting for Jeffries before her primary win.
Likewise, Iowa’s 1st congressional Democratic nominee Christina Bohannan is also noncommittal, merely responding “I don’t know yet. I haven’t made that decision,” when asked by Punchbowl News if she would support Jeffries.
“I want to get elected first,” she continued.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has classified both Bohannan and Bennett’s districts as toss-ups.
Republicans currently hold both seats.
Montana’s 1st congressional Democratic nominee Sam Forstag echoed similar sentiments as Bohannan.
Forstag sits in a seat labeled “likely Republican,” but has no incumbent running.
Mai Vang, the leading progressive primary challenger to Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), previously said she would “support the person that my future colleagues elect as our leader.”
But in an unprompted statement last week, she told Axios: “The Democratic Party and its leadership—Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries—have failed to mobilize meaningful opposition to Trump’s illegal war and their silence as AIPAC and corporations flood Congressional primaries with millions of dollars is deafening.”
“I cannot support this kind of leadership,” Vang said. “If we want to defeat Trump and rebuild trust with working Americans, we need new leadership and a new direction.”
“Most Democrats agree that he’s been failing to meet the moment,” said Adam Hamawy, a candidate in New Jersey’s 12th district, saying he is “looking for someone that’s gonna stand up to the administration.”
When asked if she would support Jeffries’ leadership, Claire Valdez, a New York State Assembly member who is running to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), said in an interview with Axios that “there would need to be some conversations.”
MY HUSBAND WALKED OUT ON ME AND OUR NEWBORN—THEN A TATTOOED STRANGER SIGNED THE “FATHER” LINE… AND WHISPERED, “DON’T OPEN THE LAST DNA ENVELOPE.”
MY HUSBAND ABANDONED ME AND OUR NEWBORN AT THE HOSPITAL—THEN A TATTOOED STRANGER SIGNED THE “FATHER” LINE… AND REVEALED THE SECRET THAT BROUGHT MY EX-HUSBAND TO HIS KNEES
I had given birth only hours earlier when my husband walked out of the hospital with his mistress.
He didn’t hold his daughter.
He didn’t ask if I was okay.
He didn’t even look back.
Before disappearing down the corridor, he gave me one final cold glance.
“Call me when you can think clearly.”
Then he left.
I stood against the pale green hospital wall in a thin pink gown, clutching my newborn daughter to my chest and fighting back another wave of tears.
I was twenty-five years old.
I had nowhere to go.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do next.
And the man who had once promised to spend the rest of his life with me had just abandoned us as if his own wife and daughter meant nothing.
Then another man appeared.
He was tall.
Powerfully built.
Dressed entirely in black.
Tattoos covered his hands, climbed his neck, and traced the hard angles of his face.
He walked straight past my husband without moving an inch out of his way.
Then he stopped in front of me.
His eyes followed the man disappearing down the corridor.
“He’s a coward.”
I stared at the stranger.
“And what kind of man are you?”
For a moment, he said nothing.
His hard expression softened as his eyes dropped to the newborn sleeping in my arms.
Then he answered.
“The kind who never leaves a child unprotected.”
Before I could understand what he meant, he took the medical folder from the nurse.
Inside was my daughter’s birth certificate.
He pulled out a sleek black pen.
Uncapped it.
And signed his name directly on the line marked:
FATHER.
My breath caught.
“What are you doing?”
The stranger calmly capped the pen.
Then he looked directly into my eyes and spoke the words that would change the rest of my life.
“My name is Luka Moretti.”
I had never met Luka before that day.
At least…
That was what I believed.
Because I was about to discover that Luka Moretti had not walked into that hospital by accident.
He knew my name.
He knew my father.
He knew about medical records that had mysteriously disappeared from the hospital system.
And most terrifying of all…
He knew something about the baby sleeping in my arms that even my husband didn’t know.
Something connected to a hidden file marked M-17.
A secret powerful people were willing to destroy lives to keep buried.
My ex-husband thought walking away from us was the end of our story.
He had no idea it was only the beginning.
Because the man who had just signed his name on my daughter’s birth certificate wasn’t really a stranger.
And when the final truth came out…
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My ex-husband would be the one begging me not to open the last DNA envelope.
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