Will Scharf warns House Oversight that its investigations may be criminal

White House counsel Will Scharf sent a letter Monday to Rep. Robert Garcia, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, warning that congressional investigations into the Trump administration "may cross the line into blatant criminality." The letter was shared with NBC News by a White House official.

Scharf argued that congressional investigations "must further a legitimate executive task" and that Congress cannot use them to exercise criminal prosecution powers assigned to the Executive and Judiciary. He cited statements by incoming Democrats calling for prosecution of ICE agents, trials for tech executives, and hearings for Cabinet secretaries like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as evidence that probes would be deployed to "harass and aggrandize" rather than advance legitimate legislative ends.

The White House said it is "monitoring" Democrats' "abusive and capricious threats" and suggested those threats may be criminal and warrant their own executive branch investigations.

The suggestion that a congressional probe could constitute criminality is not commonplace. While threats of political reprisal for partisan investigations are routine, the White House's explicit float of criminal investigation against congressional investigators inverts the usual separation-of-powers script, in which Congress investigates the executive and the executive pushes back through privilege claims and court challenges.

The House voted 211 to 204 to send articles of impeachment against Hegseth back to the House Judiciary Committee, effectively killing an effort by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie to impeach the defense secretary.

Scharf's letter sets the tone for how the incoming Democratic majority's probes into the Trump administration will unfold. It raises separation-of-powers questions about whether the executive can criminalize legislative oversight.