Article Preparing For An Unprecedented Oversight Era

As we approach the midterm elections, we face the prospect of a congressional oversight environment unlike anything we have previously seen: Democrats have strongly signaled that if they take control of one or both chambers of Congress, they will pursue a particularly aggressive oversight agenda, and that the private sector will be a key source of information. In response, the White House has already staked out the novel position that some of the private-sector communications Congress might seek are protected by executive privilege. And this tug-of-war will become even more complicated if Republicans retain the Senate while Democrats take the House, with both bodies investigating the same matters from polar-opposite perspectives. Simply rolling out the historical congressional-investigations playbook will not be sufficient to meet this unprecedented moment.