Even Republicans found a Trump nominee too bigoted. Trump appointed him anyway.
MINUTES BEFORE Anthony J. Tata was set to testify last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the hearing on his nomination to a top policy position in the Pentagon was canceled. Committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) claimed the committee hadn’t received all the necessary documents, but it was clear that enough members of the committee — Republican and Democratic — knew enough about Mr. Tata and his bigoted views to realize he was completely unsuitable for this critical job.
President Trump’s response? Doubling down on bigotry while showing total contempt for the U.S. Senate.
On Sunday, the Pentagon announced Mr. Tata’s appointment to an acting position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation, with identical duties to the position for which the Senate did not deem him qualified.
Mr. Trump is not the first president to find ways to bypass Senate confirmation for potentially problematic nominees. But for his predecessors it was a rare exception. For Mr. Trump it is the rule: fill influential positions with sycophants who lack even the minimal standing needed to satisfy the generally supine Republican majority in the Senate. There has been a singular and disturbing focus on purging the Pentagon of officials the White House sees as disloyal. Indeed, Mr. Tata’s nomination came after Mr. Trump forced the resignation of John C. Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy who pushed back on efforts to withhold military aid to Ukraine, an issue that became a key factor in the president’s impeachment. Of the 60 Senate-confirmed roles at the Pentagon, at least 18 are being filled by officials in an acting capacity. Congressional Democrats maintain that this record number of vacancies poses a threat to national security.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-republicans-found-a-trump-nominee-too-bigoted-trump-appointed-him-anyway/2020/08/03/455c5f82-d5bf-11ea-9c3b-dfc394c03988_story.html
