Democratic
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw Republican Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell’s own words back in his face, tussling over
President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks.
Schumer
announced on Monday that he is sending McConnell a copy of a letter the
Republican wrote in 2009 outlining “standards” for President Obama’s
Cabinet nominees. In a speech on the Senate floor and a tweet
in which he shared a handwritten version of the letter with McConnell’s
signature crossed out, Schumer suggested he is trying to show his
requests are “reasonable.” Confirmation hearings are set to begin on
Tuesday, but some of Trump’s nominees have not completed ethics reviews.
In
his speech, Schumer raised concerns about what he described as a
“jammed” schedule with multiple hearings being held on the same day.
Schumer also pointed out that the director of the Office of Government
Ethics has raised concerns about the pace of the hearings and said some of the nominees have not undergone reviews.
“We’re
not doing this for sport. Democrats feel very strongly that pushing for
a thorough and thoughtful vetting process is the right thing to do,”
Schumer said, later adding, “Our caucus was and is concerned about the
timely completion of the standard paperwork and ethics clearance for
nominees before proceeding full-steam ahead with their confirmation
hearings and votes.”
To
drive his point home, Schumer read aloud from a letter that McConnell
sent on Feb. 12, 2009, to then Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who was majority
leader at the time. The letter warned that Republicans would not allow
votes for any of President Obama’s nominees without completed background
checks, ethics reviews, financial disclosure statements, hearings and
conversations with members of Congress. On Twitter, Schumer shared a
copy of the letter, erasing Reid’s name and replacing it with
McConnell’s. Schumer also put his signature in place of McConnell’s.
“I
don’t bring this up to play ‘Gotcha.’ I’m doing it to show that our
requests are eminently reasonable, and in fact have been shared by
leaders of both parties,” Schumer said. “I plan to return the exact same
letter to my friend the Majority Leader with the same requests. In
2009, the then-Minority Leader called these benchmarks ‘common sense
standards’ and “longstanding practices. I agree with him.”
Our requests are eminently reasonable, shared by leaders of both parties. I'll return this letter to @SenateMajLdr with the same requests. pic.twitter.com/IMT7ZtJFjV— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 9, 2017
McConnell’s
office declined to comment on Schumer’s use of the letter other than to
point out that it was sent further along in the presidential transition
process, when many of Obama’s nominees had already been confirmed. A
rules change Democrats pushed for in 2013 prevents them from
filibustering Trump’s nominees, but they can delay the hearings and vote
against the Cabinet picks as a bloc.
In
an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, McConnell dismissed
the Democrats’ “little procedural complaints” as sour grapes.
“What
this is about, the Democrats are really frustrated that they lost the
election. I was in Sen. Schumer’s position eight years ago,” McConnell
said. “I know how it feels when you are coming into a new situation that
the other guys won the election. What did we do? We confirmed seven
cabinet appointments the day President Obama was sworn in. We didn’t
like most of them either. But he won the election. So all of these
little procedural complaints are related to their frustration in having
not only lost the White House but having lost the Senate. I understand
that, but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that. We need to
have the president’s national security team in place on Day 1.”
In
his floor speech, Schumer pointed to McConnell’s comments and suggested
Democrats are not “raising concerns about the nominations process out
of pique or anger.” Schumer pointed to the large personal fortunes of several of Trump’s nominees.
“Bear
in mind President-elect Trump’s nominees pose particularly difficult
ethics and conflict-of-interest challenges. They come from enormous
wealth, many have vast holdings and stocks, and very few have experience
in government, so they have not been appropriately vetted for something
like a Cabinet post before,” said Schumer. “What had been standard
practice for the vast majority of nominees — the completion of a
preliminary ethics review before their nomination — was skipped over for
the vast majority of President-elect Trump’s nominees.”
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