Ethics office sounds alarm on GOP rushing Trump Cabinet confirmations
Source: CBS News
Just as Cabinet nominees prepare for their confirmation hearings before the Senate next week, a federal ethics watchdog agency is expressing concerns over what it called an unusually rushed process of vetting President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks.
In a letter sent to Senate Democrats Saturday, the director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub Jr., said the schedule of Cabinet hearings created “undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews.”
“It has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings,” Shaub wrote in the letter obtained by CBS News. It was of further “great concern” to Shaub that several of Mr. Trump’s Cabinet selections had yet to complete the office’s full ethics review. For some nominees, the office had not received “even initial draft financial disclosure reports for some of the nominees scheduled for hearings,” according to the ethics director.
“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,” he said in the letter, addressed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The letter, written in response to questions by Senate Democrats on the issue, was also sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ethics-office-sounds-alarm-trump-gop-rushing-cabinet-confirmations/
A tRump spokesperson replied: “President-elect Trump is putting together the most qualified administration in history and the transition process is currently running smoothly. In the midst of a historic election where Americans voted to drain the swamp, it is disappointing some have chosen to politicize the process in order to distract from important issues facing our country.”
It's so fucking obvious with those people... up is down, red is green, hot is cold, and above all else greed is good.
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