Democrats haven’t won a single House race yet.
Al Sharpton already talks about the Speaker’s gavel like he keeps it in his coat pocket.
And his theory about who’s listening inside President Trump’s Justice Department should worry every Trump loyalist in Washington, DC.
Al Sharpton Spilled What Really Scares Career Lawyers at Justice
The comments came during a recent broadcast of Deadline on MS NOW, the network that used to call itself MSNBC. Host Ari Melber wanted to talk about Lewandowski, a man who stood beside President Trump in Iowa and New Hampshire back in 2016 and stuck with him through one investigation after another.
Melber seemed genuinely puzzled. He described Lewandowski as “a loyalist,” not one of the former MAGA figures who later turned on the President. “And yet, at this juncture, it would appear that someone inside DOJ thinks there’s enough smoke to at least investigate,” Melber said.
Sharpton didn’t need long to answer.
“Well, it is clear that it’s someone feeling there’s enough smoke, but there’s also some people that have some foresight,” Sharpton said.
Foresight about the evidence? About the law? Neither one. Sharpton meant foresight about who controls Congress next year.
He laid out a scenario where Democrats win the House, then tacked on a line that told viewers exactly how confident his side feels, calling it something “which most of us feel that is a done deal, and possibly even the Senate.”
Then he spelled out the math for anyone drawing a government paycheck. “You work at Justice, you don’t want the Judiciary Committee subpoenaing you and say, did you cover up this information that you had?” Sharpton said. He told viewers that witnesses would have to choose between pleading the Fifth and telling the truth under oath, and he capped it with a promise: “And you will see hearings like you never saw before.”
Democrats Were Circling Lewandowski Long Before Melber Got Curious
Some background helps here. In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that investigators in the office of DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari were examining Lewandowski’s involvement in department contracts signed during Kristi Noem’s tenure. According to the Journal, investigators were weighing a possible criminal referral to the Justice Department, though not right away.
Lewandowski’s camp fired back. His spokesperson denied that he issued contracts and said nobody had reached out to him about any investigation. Nobody has charged Lewandowski with a crime.
But the story didn’t start with some lone whistleblower. Earlier this year, US Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, joined fellow Democrat ranking members in calling for an inspector general investigation into Lewandowski’s influence over DHS contracts.
And in April, Bloomberg Government reported that Garcia had placed Lewandowski near the top of his subpoena wish list, right alongside White House adviser Stephen Miller and Noem herself, if Democrats take the House.
So Melber’s mystery has a fairly simple answer. Democrats asked for this investigation, Democrats announced they’d haul Lewandowski in front of the cameras, and now a Democrat cable host is suggesting nervous federal employees should get on the right side of it while there’s still time.
Sharpton Just Described a Squeeze Play and Called It Accountability
Strip away the cable-news polish and look at what Sharpton actually said. He didn’t claim anybody at Justice found damning evidence. He claimed people at Justice are looking ahead to a Democrat Judiciary Committee and deciding they’d rather not be the ones squirming under the lights.
That’s leverage. A party that hasn’t won a single seat in this election is already shaping decisions inside a federal agency, simply by promising what it will do to the people who work there later.
And Sharpton seemed perfectly comfortable saying it out loud.
He even reached for the harshest tool in the box, reminding viewers that anyone caught lying to Congress is “in contempt of Congress and can go to jail.” Conservatives remember how that went for Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, two Trump advisers who served prison time for contempt after clashing with the January 6 Select Committee, a panel that ran as a partisan exercise from its first gavel to its final report.
But Democrats never seem to swing that hammer with the same gusto when their own people stonewall. In 2012, the House voted to hold Eric Holder in contempt, making him the first sitting Attorney General to earn that distinction. The Obama Justice Department declined to prosecute him.
Washington has run a version of this play before. Mark Felt, the FBI Associate Director whom Richard Nixon passed over for the top job, spent the Watergate years feeding the Washington Post as “Deep Throat.” Nixon’s own cover-up gave Felt plenty to work with, but the media still treats the career bureaucrat settling a score as a footnote rather than the headline.
But Sharpton’s version comes with a modern twist. Nobody has to leak anything. The career staff just has to read the polls, picture next year’s hearing room, and act accordingly.
Democrats Already Wrote the Script for a Two-Year Hearing Marathon
Sharpton isn’t freelancing. House Democrats have spent months mapping out what they’d do with subpoena power.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told the Associated Press, “There is a cost to the American people of the out-of-control corruption,” as his caucus prepared an oversight agenda aimed at the President, his family, and his administration. One Democrat aide described the plan to Zeteo as a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy.
Reuters reported that Democrat leaders already sent letters to companies and contractors to lay the groundwork for subpoenas. A Democrat aide quoted in that reporting put it plainly: “If investigations uncover evidence that we believe meets the threshold, we will not hesitate to move forward.”
Jeffries also refuses to rule out impeachment. Voters heard the same soft-pedaling in 2018, right before a Democrat House impeached President Trump over a phone call with Ukraine and then again over January 6.
And the Judiciary Committee Sharpton singled out would likely land in the hands of US Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the panel’s top Democrat and a veteran of both impeachment drives.
Cable pundits have called plenty of elections “done deals” over the years. A few of those predictions aged like milk on a July porch.
But the bigger story doesn’t hinge on November at all. The pressure Sharpton described works right now, on people who answer to President Trump today and might answer Raskin’s subpoenas tomorrow.
So how many career lawyers at Justice have already started taking their cues from a cable host instead of their boss?
Sources: Breitbart News, “Sharpton: If Dems Win Midterms ‘You Will See Hearings Like You Never Saw Before’”; Raw Story and Mediaite, reporting on the Wall Street Journal’s account of the DHS inspector general probe; Oversight Democrats press releases; Bloomberg Government, “Miller, Noem Called High on Subpoena List If Democrats Win House”; Associated Press, “House Democrats plan vast oversight of Trump administration”; Zeteo; Reuters via Washington Examiner and Tasnim News, “Democrats Plan Trump Investigations over Impeachment If They Win House.”