CABINET CONFIRMATION HEARINGS
Don’s picks go for confirmation in D.C. Scrutiny on race and ties to Vlad
SOME OF DONALD Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks will get their confirmation hearings this week, setting up high-profile conflicts over Russia, civil rights and government ethics.
Republicans are pushing a packed hearing schedule.
The most combustible will likely be the hearing for attorney general candidate Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Democrats are expected to grill him about his controversial past statements on race and immigration.
Sparks could also fly at the hearing for Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, President-elect Trump’s choice for secretary of state. Critics, including several senators, have expressed concern about Tillerson’s ties to Russia.
Democrats don’t have a strong hand to play, largely because when they controlled the Senate in 2013 they lowered the threshold for confirmation picks from 60 to 51 votes. With 48 members, that means they won’t be able to block anyone without help from the other side of the aisle.
Dems have accused Republicans of trying to ram through some nominees before the ethics office has been able to finish vetting them, in some cases before they’ve submitted all the necessary paperwork. They’re threatening to slow Senate operations to a crawl if they don’t get more information on some nominees and more time to background them.
“A cabinet secretary has immense power over the lives of Americans, immense power, and they deserve a full vetting. An attempt to rush them through when you don’t know the potential conflicts of interest, their views on so many important issues and how they’ll divest themselves of the enormous wealth many have is a disservice to the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told the Daily News Friday.
Schumer said that he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were still negotiating over the schedule and thought there had been “some progress” in talks, but was willing to dig his heels in if necessary. Democrats could force 30 hours of floor debate on each nominee, potentially stretching out the confirmation process to more than three weeks and make it all but impossible for Republicans to do anything else in the meantime.
Republicans scoff at their complaints, pointing out that President Obama had nearly half of his cabinet confirmed by the end of his first day in office. Democrats counter that Obama’s nominees had all their paperwork and background checks submitted when that happened.
“My friends on the other side of the aisle… let’s face it, shot a hole in their foot with the nuclear option,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Friday morning.
But on Saturday, the head of the Office of Government Ethics warned that Republicans’ rush to confirm nominees was highly problematic.
“The announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me. This schedule has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews,” Walter Shaub, director of the OGE, said in a letter to Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “More significantly, it has left some of the
nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings. I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process.”
Trump is likely to get most if not all of his cabinet through - but that doesn’t mean it will be a smooth process.
Tillerson will face tough questions about his personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government awarded him the Order of Friendship medal in 2012, a high civilian honor, his work with Russia and his criticism of past sanctions against Russia. He’ll also face questions about climate change.
“The fact that you have a Presidentelect saying he doesn’t believe the intelligence agencies and he’s appointing someone who doesn’t believe in sanctions (against Russia)… and has significant interests in Russia, is very concerning,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).
The real question is whether most Senate GOP Russia hardliners agree.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have all expressed concerns about Tillerson’s Russia ties.
Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will oversee Tillerson’s confirmation, didn’t seem concerned about his chances.
“I predict that he’s going to be overwhelmingly supported. I predict that people are going to see what a distinguished individual this person is,” Corker said. “My guess is people are going to realize that his views on Russia are not in any way out of the mainstream.”
Sessions also faces the prospect of tough hearings, though he’s less likely than Tillerson to be blocked. No Republicans have suggested they would vote against him.
But Sessions’ past - one that kept him from getting a federal judgeship in the 1980s - will face scrutiny.
While serving as U.S. attorney in Alabama, Sessions allegedly called a black assistant U.S. attorney “boy,” insisted that the NAACP was “un-American” and “Communist-inspired,” and agreed with a judge who called a white civil rights attorney a “disgrace to his race.”
Since then, he’s emerged as the Senate’s harshest anti-immigration reform voice.
Republicans know he’s in for a bruising hearing. To counter some concerns, Republicans are planning to have prominent African Americans who have worked with him vouch for his character during hearings.
Democrats are also gunning hard for Health & Human Services nominee Tom Price, who has long advocated major Medicare and Medicaid changes as a congressman, and Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin, a billionaire who made huge sums from a bank that specialized in foreclosures after the 2008 economic crisis.