The White House has warned the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee that the Trump administration “will not be extorted” as it cautions against forthcoming congressional investigations. “The Trump Administration expects members of Congress to discharge their investigative functions within settled constitutional limits,” said the White House letter to Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, which was obtained by CNN and dated Monday. “The Administration will not be extorted and will not be cowed by unlawful process motivated by animus, pettiness, hatred, or any other unlawful motive to intimidate, penalize or interfere with the lawful functioning of government.” The letter signed by White House counsel Will Scharf also states that threatening executive branch officials to discourage them from public service could amount to “blatant criminality.” Scharf goes on to say that congressional investigations “must further a legitimate legislative task” and “Congress cannot employ them to exercise powers of criminal prosecution assigned to the Executive and the Judiciary.” Garcia has vowed to take an “aggressive” oversight approach, despite Trump pushing his administration to look into Democrats who are investigating him. As the midterm results became clear last week, Garcia posted on X: “LAWYER UP.” “The days of us not fighting back are over. This idea that we’re every single time not going to actually take on that fight is over. We’ve got to be in the fight and be aggressive,” Garcia told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” over the weekend. The California Democrat accused Attorney General Todd Blanche of “threatening” lawmakers on the panel with investigations in an attempt to stop them from conducting oversight, adding, “they can come after us however they want. We’re not going to be intimidated.”