Trump has no nominees for 245 important jobs, including an ambassador to South Korea
By James Hohmann January 12 at 8:33 AM
THE BIG IDEA: The Winter Olympics begin one month from today in South Korea, and American officials are reportedly contemplating a “bloody nose” strike on nuclear North Korea, yet President Trump still has not nominated an ambassador to Seoul.
Next Saturday brings the anniversary of the inauguration. Over the first year, a fixation on the chaos and churn inside the West Wing has often overshadowed the less-sexy decay and neglect at the departmental level. There are a striking number of big jobs that have not been filled.
The Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, have been working together to track the status of 626 top jobs in the executive branch. This includes assistant secretaries, chief financial officers, general counsels, heads of agencies, ambassadors and other leadership positions that experts believe are critical for the federal government to function effectively. These represent about half of the roughly 1,200 positions that require Senate confirmation.
The White House likes to blame Congress for dragging its feet, but that’s only part of the story: As of this morning, there is no pending nominee for 245 of the 626 jobs we're tracking. Among them: deputy secretary at Treasury and Commerce, director of the Census, director of ATF, director of the Office on Violence Against Women at Justice and commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
At Veterans Affairs, no one has been tapped to be the undersecretary for health or benefits.
At the Transportation Department, there is not a nominee to be administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/01/12/daily-202-trump-has-no-nominees-for-245-important-jobs-including-an-ambassador-to-south-korea/5a57cce830fb0469e8840085
