Democrat-controlled House faces question: what not to investigate?

When Democrats formally assume the US House majority in January for the first time in eight years, they will contend with a president long dubbed by most members of their party as unfit and unqualified to serve.

But for the first time in the two years since Donald Trump’s inauguration, Democrats will no longer be watching or protesting from the sidelines.

Fresh off a major victory in the November 2018 midterm elections – which saw the party gain 40 seats in the House – Democrats are preparing to fully utilize the investigative authorities afforded to Congress as legal troubles continue to mount for thepresidentandhisinnercircle.

And unlike their Republican counterparts, who were reticent to levy the powers of congressional oversight against Trump, nothing appears to be off limits.

The question before Democrats appears to be what not to investigate – and whether there’s any room for negotiation with a president who is anathema to the party’s base.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who is poised to retake the speaker’s gavel in January, declared on the night of the 7 November midterm elections that it was the responsibility of lawmakers in Washington to find common ground.

“We will strive for bipartisanship, with fairness on all sides,” Pelosi said in a victory speech after the House was called for Democrats.

“A Democratic Congress will work for solutions that bring us together, because we have all had enough of division. The American people want peace.

They want results.”

But Pelosi, who in 2007 became the first woman to serve as House speaker, also issued a sharp warning to the White House, stating the election was “about restoring the constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration”.

Trump has largely avoided scrutiny under a Republican-controlled Congress, despite a litany of issues that have alarmed government and ethics watchdogs since he took office.

Among the avenues Democrats plan to pursue are potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice; Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns; hush money paid by the president’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump; and the misuse of taxpayer dollars by

Nancy Pelosi, the likely new speaker, and fellow Democratic representatives have said they will strive for bipartisanship with also holding the president to account. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Adam Schiff, left, is likely to take a radically different approach to oversight from the outgoing House intelligence committee chair, Devin Nunes, right. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images