With so many targets, and so many hungry Democrats, “there’s the potential for oversight fratricide next year,” says a senior Democratic official on the Intelligence Committee, noting the overlapping jurisdictions of the various committees. There’s also the potential for distraction. “The question is, do you want to be the Breaking News Committee that just investigates the issue of the day?” asks Swalwell, who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. “Or do you want to look at broader, longstanding core issues?” At that September meeting and at multiple gatherings of members and their staffs over the subsequent weeks and months, an initial strategy — and a division of labor — began to take shape.

Schiff, the incoming Intelligence Committee chairman, will play a major role. One of his top priorities will be protecting — and assisting — Mueller’s investigation, and one of his first acts in the new Congress will be trying to get to the bottom of one of the more tantalizing mysteries of the whole Russia affair: Whom did Donald Trump Jr. speak to on his phone in between calls setting up the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians peddling dirt on Hillary Clinton? Trump Jr. claims he can’t remember, and the call appears as a blocked number on his phone records. Nunes refused to ask Trump Jr.’s cellular provider for the blocked number. “That phone call may lead to a place the Republicans didn’t want to go,” Schiff says, “and so they were unwilling to get the answer.” Schiff wants the answer and will press the provider for it.