THE REPORT: Democrats Press Kash on $$$

Follow The $$$

Welcome to this week’s edition of THE REPORT. Every Wednesday, The Watchdog Report will give a quick look at the oversight actions taken by Democrats in Congress and outside allies.

• Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, launched an investigation into a scheme inside Kash Patel’s corrupt FBI to illegally direct over $1 million in taxpayer-funded bonuses towards a small group of agents willing to brazenly ignore the law in favor of pursuing political targets and members of Patel’s personal security detail who are privy to his many abuses of FBI resources.

• Raskin also sent a pair of letters to the leaders of Harvard University and Bard College expanding the Committee’s investigation into how Jeffrey Epstein used his relationships with prominent universities to expand his sex trafficking operation. Evidence indicates Epstein leveraged his relationships with universities and their faculty to traffic vulnerable young women and continually burnish his reputation and public image to avoid detection.

• Raskin is also demanding an immediate investigation into Andrew S. Boutros, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, over his misconduct in the “Broadview Six” case—a failed federal prosecution of six Democratic elected officials and activists charged for protesting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility near Chicago.

• Raskin has expanded his investigation into a Trump Administration campaign involving the Department of Justice (DOJ), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the White House targeting apps used by the public to report and share information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) activity.

• U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, sent letters to KKR & Co, BlackRock, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, and Blackstone probing the firms on their increased involvement in data center developments and operations as rising utility prices continue to put pressure on American families.

• Warren and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for answers following the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) request to drop its criminal case against billionaire Gautam Adani after he hired President Trump’s personal lawyer and reportedly offered a quid-pro-quo deal to invest $10 billion in the United States in return.

• Warren, Blumenthal, and Representative Ro Khanna, Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, introduced the Critical Defense Ownership Review Act. This bill would increase Department of Defense (DoD) oversight of mergers and acquisitions involving private equity (PE) and defense contractors.

• Warren and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon requesting information regarding reports that Solomon asked Goldman Sachs Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler to remain at the bank as an “adviser” despite her resignation following mounting public scrutiny of her close personal and professional relationship with convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

• U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led the release of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) newly-completed report examining the Trump Administration’s immigration detention expansion, specifically regarding waste and performance issues at Camp East Montana.

• On Tuesday, June 23, 2026 at 3 p.m. ET, U.S. Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will hold a bicameral public forum to expose how the Trump Administration is making children and families more vulnerable to illness and disease by destroying progress, dismantling health agencies, trying to take away life-saving vaccines, and lying to the American people about their “MAHA” promises to make people healthy.

• Garcia is demanding answers from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after recent reporting revealed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller pushed to suspend habeas corpus rights and Vice President J.D. Vance pushed to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress peaceful protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Habeas corpus is a fundamental aspect of due process, allowing people in the United States to contest the basis of their detention.

• Garcia also called on Chairman James Comer immediately arrange interviews of Vice President JD Vance, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and other senior Trump Administration officials following explosive new reporting from The New York Times revealing secret Situation Room meetings to orchestrate the White House’s cover-up of the Epstein files in order to protect President Trump. Vance reportedly presided over a meeting in the Situation Room to coordinate the handling of the Epstein files.