Democrats plan to grill nominees

They aim to focus on Trump’s pledges versus his Cabinet picks

In this June 23, 2016 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.
In this June 23, 2016 file photo, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- While Senate Democrats concede that they have little leverage to stop President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees, they insist that they won't be discouraged from making the confirmation process as uncomfortable as possible for many of his choices.


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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks during the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Monday, July 25, 2016.

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Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., smiles while greeting the press with Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016 in Washington.

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Steven Mnuchin, national finance chairman of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign, center, walks with Eli Miller, left, through the lobby at Trump Tower, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016, in New York.

With picks like Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a proponent of fundamental changes to Medicare, to be health secretary, and Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman Sachs trader turned hedge-fund manager, as Treasury secretary, Democrats hope to use the confirmation hearings to highlight the incongruities between Trump's campaign promises and much of the team he is assembling.

"President-elect Trump promised that he was going to clean up the swamp," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the incoming Democratic leader, "and a whole lot of his nominees have had their career in the swamp."

One by one, Schumer said, Democrats will use the confirmation process to highlight positions held by nominees that are either inconsistent with Trump's campaign promises or raise the sorts of ethical questions that Democrats tried in vain to tie to Trump during the campaign -- his refusal to release his tax returns, for example.

[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who serves on committees that tend to have contentious hearings, is expected to grill many of the nominees.

"We should know what direction this administration is headed in," Schumer said. "They didn't win the election by saying they were going to hire people who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. I will also be looking for any ethical transgressions."

For starters, Democrats announced last week that they will push for a rule requiring all Cabinet-level nominees to provide Congress with their tax returns, a move made to suggest that some of Trump's selections may share conflict-of-interest and tax issues with the incoming president.

Democrats have themselves to blame for their weakened position in challenging a nominee. In 2013, the Senate voted largely along party lines to remove the 60-vote threshold on Cabinet-level and non-Supreme Court judicial nominees. Trump's nominees will now need the support of only 51 senators to be confirmed. Republicans are expected to hold 52 seats next year.

"At the end of the day, we were the ones who changed it to 51," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who voted for the measure. "I think it's important to remember how righteous we were."

It is highly unusual for Congress, even in an era of divided government, to outright filibuster Cabinet nominees. Republicans have shown broad support for Trump's choices so far, even those lawmakers who have been otherwise critical of him.

In one instance, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, gave a fast nod to Trump's choice of attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who came under immediate fire by Democrats for his decades-old positions on civil-rights issues and his hard-line immigration stance that made him an early Trump ally.

In short, Republicans say bring it on.

"We hope responsible Democrats won't be bullied by the radical left to turn the confirmation process into some political sideshow," said Antonia Ferrier, a spokesman for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader.

But Democratic lawmakers can make the process afflictive. Price is expected to receive a particularly hot grilling. He has been the chief architect of a plan to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and has long desired to transform Medicare into a voucherlike program for future participants.

Sessions also is likely to undergo tough questioning about accusations of racially insensitive comments from the 1980s that doomed his nomination to be a federal judge and his tentative embrace of Trump's call for a ban on Muslim immigration. Still, Sessions has served in the Senate for more than a decade and has a complex record on civil rights back home in Alabama, and his Republican colleagues will likely be quick to defend him.

"There are a lot of pointed questions I plan to ask," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the Medicare program and requires tax returns from nominees. "These nomination hearings are extremely important in that they are going to provide a key opportunity to lay out the concerns we have."

Most Democrats seem more interested in pointing out that Trump's nominees largely stand out of step with his campaign promises to "drain the swamp" of lobbyists, former bankers and Washington insiders.

Mnuchin is a 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs, and the billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, the choice for commerce secretary, signed a letter in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which Trump has ridiculed as disastrous.

Democrats plan to use the nomination process to underscore the dichotomy.

"He's filling it with bigger swamp creatures," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who is pressing for nominees to be required to disclose tax returns.

A Section on 12/04/2016

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