‘I’ll Get Impeached’

The White House Counsel’s Office is preparing key Trump administration political appointees for the possibility of having to respond to congressional oversight from Democrats, the Washington Post reported on Monday afternoon, a sign that at least some around Trump recognize Democrats may well take back control of the House from Republicans this fall. Part of that prep work includes advising Trump administration officials to be mindful of what they are putting in written communications.

Per WaPo:

The roughly 30-minute briefings have included a PowerPoint presentation about how congressional oversight works and best practices for handling it, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Staff from the counsel’s office have encouraged political appointees to be careful about what they put in writing and provided guidance for how to respond to congressional inquiries in a timely manner, the people said.

The preparation for increased oversight is an acknowledgment of a reality this administration rarely dwells on publicly, as President Trump paints ominous visions of how he and his election-denying allies might try to meddle with election administration in key parts of the country — and the Supreme Court offers him an assist in his nationwide gerrymandering frenzy.

While one White House official, speaking anonymously to the Post, said that the recent guidance on congressional oversight is “nothing new” and something the administration has been doing “to ensure oversight compliance and that best practices are followed since January 2025,” concerns about Democrats winning back the lower chamber in November is at the heart of these conversations, according to WaPo:

But the more recent briefings, at least some of which have occurred over the past month, have taken place in a very different context and have “a strong overtone” of the midterms, said one of the two people who spoke to The Washington Post.

At least some staff members have considered the briefings preparatory, given the growing sense across the Trump administration that the Republican Party is in trouble and that the time has come to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Concerns about the outcome of November’s midterms — and the oversight that could result — have animated Trump’s push to force Republican state legislators to redraw congressional districts in their states in hopes of eking out more Republican wins in the House. While there is some value in Republicans holding Congress so they can maintain their control of both the legislative and executive branch, Trump has made it clear in the first year-plus of his second term that he cares very little about the role of the legislative branch in accomplishing his goals. And Trump has admitted he’s worried about impeachment — and other potential investigations that are bound to take place as soon as Democrats again hold subpoena and oversight power in the House.

“You gotta win the midterms. Because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told Republicans in January. “I’ll get impeached.”

Speaking of Oversight …

Some Republicans in Congress are reportedly wondering if they should be doing more investigative oversight of the Department of Homeland Security after fired Secretary Kristi Noem used millions in taxpayer dollars to fund dystopian ad campaigns that prominently featured her, and to pay for her lavish private jet use.

“We should probably do some oversight,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, told NOTUS. “I don’t know the last time that the chairman did an oversight hearing on DHS. I can’t think of it. Maybe it’s just slipping my mind. But it’s not a very active committee. Probably should be.”

NOTUS has more reporting here, on both Republicans’ heartburn over Noem as well as leadership failures at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Voters Sue Over New Florida Maps

Just after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis officially signed new, gerrymandered congressional maps into law to be used in the midterms as Republicans try to pick up as many as four new seats in the House there, a group of voters and the Equal Ground Education Fund sued. They want the maps that were approved by the state legislature in 2022 to be reinstated, arguing that DeSantis and Republicans in the legislatures violated anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state Constitution when drawing the new district lines.

DeSantis has acknowledged as much. In the race to pass the new maps in the state House and Senate the same day that the Supreme Court issued its devastating Louisiana v. Callais decision, DeSantis claimed that the ruling also made the anti-gerrymandering amendment in the state Constitution — which is called the Fair Districts Amendment and was approved by voters in 2010 — invalid.

“The SCOTUS ruling also invalidates the below provisions of the FL Constitution requiring the use of race in redistricting,” DeSantis said last week.

‘The 2026 plan is, by traditional measures of partisan gerrymandering, one of the most extreme gerrymanders in American history,” the lawsuit says. “Statistics like this do not occur by accident. They are the product of deliberate choices, made by professionals with sophisticated tools and a clear partisan goal: to pack and crack Democratic voters with surgical precision and deprive Florida voters of a fair map guaranteed to them by the Florida Constitution.”

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