Around this time eight years ago, much of the political world marveled at the fact that Donald Trump was making cabinet choices without bothering to scrutinize or investigate those choices. While it is standard for new administrations to review the personal and financial background of potential nominees, including their tax returns, the then-Republican president-elect decided not to worry about that.
The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that Trump — who had a habit of announcing Cabinet nominees “before his transition team was ready for the announcement” — was making decisions “based on gut feeling.” In other words, he was working on it.
Once in the White House there was more of the same. Although the then-president boasted that he and his team “had an excellent vetting process,” there was ample evidence to the contrary: Trump and his operation routinely failed to exert any meaningful vetting on all nominees who ultimately failed due to controversies over the elections. Republican and his aides would have seen it coming if they had bothered to do their homework.
It is against this background that Trump has already announced his cabinet choices for a second term in record time. And how, say, did he manage to make these selections so quickly? It turned out to be simple: the president-elect and his team once again downplayed the significance of the entire vetting process.
The Washington Post reported last week: “While his team considers hundreds of potential appointees for key jobs, he has so far declined to let the Federal Bureau of Investigation check for potential red flags and security threats to protect against espionage — instead relying on private campaign lawyers. for some appointees and no vetting at all for others.”
One Republican senator downplayed the significance of these tactics. NBC News reported:
Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty suggested Sunday that Americans don’t care about traditional FBI background checks for newly elected President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, while Democrats are calling for a more thorough investigation of executive branch nominees. Hagerty, R-Tenn., said Sunday that Americans “don’t care” who conducts background checks for presidential candidates when asked about the FBI’s role in conducting a background check on former Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
Appearing on ABC News’ “This Week,” the Tennessee Republican told Jonathan Karl, “I don’t think the American public cares who does the background checks.”
That could very well be true. I haven’t seen any recent polling on this, but it’s very likely that the typical American voter isn’t overly interested in potential Cabinet nominees and their vetting process during the presidential transition process.
But I also think Hagerty is missing the point.
New administrations do not carefully vet potential nominees because they think this is important to voters; they do this because it is important for the new governments themselves. It is not about ticking a political box to meet the demands of the electorate; it’s about doing important work that should be important to presidents and White House officials.
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki explained this weekend:
There’s a reason presidential transition teams have extensively vetted nominees for decades. This process can (and should) expose the skeletons, the conflicts of interest and, yes, even the immorality of some elected presidents. The process typically involves hours of intensive interviews with candidates, an FBI background check, and extensive reviews with teams of attorneys on backgrounds and qualifications. It sounds invasive because it is invasive. But it also allows presidents-elect to exclude people who cannot be confirmed or should not be confirmed for a Cabinet position.
That framework is spot on: It’s about identifying red flags that alert officials to those who “cannot be confirmed or should not be confirmed for any Cabinet job.” Because the process involves the former, a thorough vetting process will alert a White House to potential nominees who are likely to fail in the Senate, saving a president time and embarrassment.
As for those who should not be confirmed, it is worth emphasizing that vetting teams do these deep dives to ensure that those in positions of power do not have scandals against them that could be used against them, leaving them vulnerable to blackmail or extortion.
As far as Bill Hagerty is concerned, the public doesn’t really care about vetting. The better question, though, is why Trump doesn’t care much about vetting.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
