Washington: As Senate Republicans embark on a flurry of confirmation hearings this week, several of President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees have yet to complete the background checks and ethics clearances customarily required before the Senate begins to consider Cabinet-level nominees.
Republicans, who are expected to hold up to five hearings on Wednesday alone, say they simply want to ensure the new president has a team in place as soon as possible. “I believe all the president-elect’s Cabinet appointments will be confirmed,” Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said.
But Democrats are calling for the process to be slowed and for the hearings to be spread out. That, they say, would allow more time to vet the nominees. “Our first overarching focus is getting tax returns and ethics forms,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
In a letter to Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter M. Shaub Jr., said “the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me.”
He said the packed schedule had put “undue pressure” on the office to rush its reviews of the nominees and he knew of no other occasion in the office’s four decades when the Senate had held a confirmation hearing before the review was completed.
Several of the nominees are millionaires or billionaires and have vast webs of financial interests that must be untangled.
— By arrangement with the New York Times
