House Oversight Chair Is Using His Power to Investigate DC Organizers

After a locally organized pressure campaign urged residents to delete DoorDash, the food delivery company withdrew support for a bill on October 1 that would effectively end home rule (or the right to govern) in Washington, D.C. But instead of being able to celebrate, the organizers behind the win now have a new target on their backs.

Rep. James Comer’s (R-Kentucky) HR 9720, the D.C. Taxing Authority Review Act, would require both chambers of Congress to approve any tax increases or additional fees passed by the D.C. Council. If it became law, it would effectively strip Washingtonians of their ability to change their own tax code.

According to organizers involved in budget reform, HR 9720 is a worst-case scenario.

“The way that bill was structured was probably one of the most significant attacks on autonomy that we’ve seen in a long time,” said Queen Adesuyi, a spokesperson with the Fair Budget Coalition, a group that advocates for budget and public policy initiatives that address systemic social, racial, and economic inequality in D.C. “It actually affirmatively made it so Congress would have to say yes to D.C. to be able to pass or change a law.”

Free DC, an organization that advocates for the dignity of Washington residents, recognized the incredible risk that Comer’s bill carried for Washingtonians and home rule. The group launched a campaign to pressure HR 9720’s biggest corporate supporter to back off the bill, urging DoorDash users to delete their accounts until Free DC’s demands were met.

In addition to demanding DoorDash no longer support Comer’s bill, Free DC is asking the company to make a public statement explicitly stating that Trump’s “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force” should end and condemning ICE and other federal police who have targeted and killed their drivers. Operating since March 2025, the task force was created under an executive order from the Trump administration to increase federal policing and ICE operations across the District.

Less than two weeks after DoorDash withdrew support from the bill, Comer — who chairs the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Accountability — announced an investigation into Free DC, as well as Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, a Black-led community defense hub and regular partner of Free DC.

Community groups who share coalition space with the two targeted organizations are describing this investigation as a naked attempt at retaliation.

“The actions of the (oversight) committee seem to be part of a troubling pattern in our country of weaponizing official investigations to try to intimidate or silence civil society organizations that make democracy possible,” reads a statement from Together For DC, a new campaign aimed at building allies nationwide for D.C. statehood. “The emerging investigation, H.R. 9720, and the 20+ bills that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has advanced that undermine DC’s self-determination demonstrate a harmful pattern of federal interference that not only threatens DC’s autonomy, but represents a broader threat to the promise of democracy nationwide.”

Local elected leaders have also been vocal about how these two attacks against Washingtonians are motivated by a desire to silence effective organizing.

“This is yet another attempt by the Republicans and allies of Donald Trump to intimidate people who are pushing back against their agenda,” Sen. Ankit Jain, a non-voting member of Congress representing D.C., told Truthout. “Free DC has been very effective in fighting the Republican and presidential attacks on Washington, D.C., and I think they don’t like it. And so they’re trying to use the power of the government to punish their political enemies.”

In a press release, Comer says he is “investigating politicized jury nullification initiatives by left-wing activist groups in the District of Columbia.” The announcement claims that Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams “are training activists to conceal their biases during jury selection, infiltrate juries, and acquit criminals based on political agendas rather than the law and evidence.” In letters to the two organizations, Comer requested that he be provided with documentation related to the juror trainings by October 27 to continue his investigation.

On October 27, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams released a letter from the organization’s attorney, Andrew O. Clarke, addressed to Comer and the Oversight Committee. In the letter Clarke requests a 90-day extension to the deadline while also citing a variety of concerns with the investigation, including first amendment violations. In the letter, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams denies that the organization has violated any law or regulation.

The organization’s requested deadline is January 25, 2027, after the start of a new congressional session on January 3, 2027. In the new 120th Congress, Comer will no longer be Oversight chair given this leadership role is term-limited.

Comer’s office, Free DC, and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams were contacted for this story, but were not available for comment.

The trainings that Comer is investigating are part of the two groups’ “Juror Information Project.” The project is a public education program where Washingtonians learn more about jury service and how community members can use their jury service to protect people, “especially those with marginalized identities who are disproportionately targeted by the criminal legal system.”

In a statement released alongside the letter, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams made their motivation for these trainings clear.

“Educating our community about participation in the jury system is not an assault on the Constitution. It is participation in it,” reads the statement released on October 27.

Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams moved forward with another edition of their Juror Information Project on October 28 despite the investigation.

Jury nullification is when a jury returns a “not guilty” verdict, even when they believe the prosecution has demonstrated that the defendant has broken the law. Historical examples of jury nullification have outlined milestones in the Civil Rights and LGBTQIA+ liberation movements.

During the early 19th century, while under the Fugitive Slave Act, Northern jurors rendered “not guilty” verdicts for abolitionists and rescue workers despite clear evidence they broke the law. Later in the 1960s, men who faced “consensual sodomy charges” were acquitted after juries deemed cases like these “not guilty,” even though the actions of the defendants were technically against the law. In both these cases, jurors acted out of moral opposition to the law, rather than factual dispute.

According to experts, jury nullification is just as legal as it is important for progress.

“Jury nullification is a constitutional power that every juror enjoys,” Paul Butler, the Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University Law Center and former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice, told Truthout. “It has a long, storied history. It’s been credited with advancing the end of enslavement and the end of prosecution of people for having consensual gay sex and the end of alcohol prohibition.”

Comer’s investigation also raises some questions in relation to the procedure through which oversight is traditionally conducted. The press release and letters announcing the investigation assume that Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams are guilty of something — which, according to oversight experts, compromises the oversight process.

“The tone of this (press release) is judgmental and already kind of pre-decisional,” said Linda Gustitus, director of the Washington Office at the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, an organization affiliated with Wayne State University Law School, and former staff director for three different oversight subcommittees in the Senate. “And that’s where people lose confidence in oversight: when it’s done in this fashion where you’ve already decided the person is bad or wrong, and you’re going to go after them to prove it. That’s exactly the wrong kind of approach to good oversight.”

Without statehood, all adult criminal cases in D.C. are prosecuted by a U.S. attorney appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Currently, that position is held by Jeanine Pirro, whose office has faced criticism for a distinctly low conviction rate, winning only about 50 percent of its initial federal jury trials, while the Justice Department’s national average sits around 90 percent. This disparity is one that Senator Jain says explains the motivation behind the investigation.

“It seems to me that Republicans are trying to make excuses for Jeanine Pirro being ‘bad’ at her job,” Jain told Truthout.

Pirro, whose friendship with Trump can be traced back decades, has been on record calling January 6 insurrectionists “hostages” and vowed that under her leadership there would be “no more mercy for criminals.”

Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams have been at the forefront of some of the most significant demonstrations against Trump’s occupation of D.C., and some of the fiercest advocates for statehood. While Comer’s investigation is in its early stages, Butler underlines that the legal protections behind jury nullification are rigid.

“It’s not surprising that there are some politicians who are mad about the people using their constitutional power to push back against fascism,” said Butler. “But the law and justice are squarely on the side of people who are using jury duty as the framers of the Constitution intended as a check on power-hungry prosecutors.”