Tuesday, November 10, 2026
Rep. Jared Huffman of California, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, planned to issue letters on Tuesday to the Interior Department, other federal agencies and private companies demanding that they "preserve all records and data responsive to oversight" of the panel he is set to chair when Democrats take over Congress in January.
The letters follow warnings from whistleblowers who approached Huffman's committee in recent weeks. Congressional sources say multiple credible whistleblowers have voiced concern that the Interior Department is getting rid of records tied to President Donald Trump's Washington construction projects in anticipation of the scrutiny coming from the new Congress. The department oversees much of the national parkland the President wants to use for his projects, including the White House ballroom, the East Potomac golf course, the triumphal arch, fencing at Lafayette Square and the Tidal Basin plan with its Garden of American Heroes.
The Interior Department called the whistleblower claims "100% false." A spokesperson said: "The Department follows all federal records management obligations as directed by the Department's ethics officials." The White House backed that up. "The White House expects the entire administration and all agencies to abide by federal record retention rules," said White House spokesman Davis Ingle. "However, any allegations without evidence is speculative and irresponsible reporting."
Among the recipients of Huffman's letters are the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management, both part of Interior, the Agriculture Department, and companies like Lockheed Martin and John Deere that are known to have donated to the President's projects. The whistleblowers did not say those entities had destroyed documents. Every recipient is being told it must reply to certify its compliance, which requires efforts to "preserve existing records collections and productions," as well as "identify and recover any deleted information" and "suspend any destruction and deletion practices."
The administration, meanwhile, is signalling it will accelerate the projects to lay as much groundwork as possible before the Democrats take over. The day after the midterm elections, President Trump appeared at the White House ballroom construction site, signing the last steel beam before it was raised. "President Trump is moving at lightning speed because we don't have time to waste in our mission to make America greater than ever before," Ingle said.
Huffman says his committee is readying the full arsenal that comes with the gavel. "Everything is coming; it's all coming," he said. Committee aides expect a high-profile hearing on one or several of the projects early in the new Congress, the panel is prepared to issue subpoenas, and Huffman believes the committee's work could stop some of the projects from going forward, "especially because we have standing to go to court if we have to."
For taxpayers, what is at stake in the letters is the paper trail itself: the records are how the public can later check what was decided about federal land, public money and donated funds behind some of the most visible construction projects in the capital. Preservation costs the recipients little, while destroyed records can never be reviewed by anyone.
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