Before being subjected to hearings before the appropriate Senate committees for confirmation, senior executive branch nominees undergo investigation by the FBI to ascertain whether they have any issues that could compromise national security and prevent them from clearance for confidential information. And both Democrat and Republican counsel, whether disagreeing on myriad policy matters otherwise, agree that these FBI checks were critical to United States national security.
For several years, we were the Republican and Democratic counsels who reviewed presidential nominees’ background checks for the Senate Judiciary Committee. We know how the confirmation process is supposed to work and how important F.B.I. vetting is to that process. That’s why we’re appalled by reports that the new Republican-led Senate and the incoming Trump administration may dispense with it.
Without nominees being scrutinized by the F.B.I., the danger is that neither lawmakers nor the public would know whether they are trustworthy or have issues that could compromise their ability to do the job or their loyalty to the United States.
Among other transition problems, such as disclosing whether and which foreign governments bought a piece of the Trump administration’s transition, the contention that the FBI can’t be trusted has given rise to the hiring of outside contractors to conduct the investigation rather than the FBI. While conspiracy theorists might find this alternative alluring, the Senate has long relied on the FBI to do a job it has done well. The notion of going outside the normal investigatory functions would never have flown.
Efforts to bypass F.B.I. background checks and even Senate confirmation itself via mass recess appointments, made by the president when the Senate is not in session, never would have flown with past iterations of the Judiciary Committee, regardless of which party was in charge. The Senate shouldn’t stand for it now.
This raises problems with the efficacy, integrity and reliability of the process before the reports ever hit the Senate committee members’ desks.
Even if we assume private contractors would be thorough, objective, consistent and transparent — which is very much an open question — this untested process would most likely leave gaps and cause delays. Senate investigators would need to adapt on the fly and would have no clear process to review private investigators’ findings and follow up as needed.
So what, you say? If you believe that the FBI is untrustworthy and determined to sabotage the Trump administration’s nominees, then what other choice is there? It’s not that the administration is against serious vetting for the sake of national security, you argue, but that the FBI has failed the administration by proving itself incapable of doing the job. After all, what about Hunter’s laptop or the “Biden’s Crime Family’s” getting paid off by Ukranian’s Burisma?
Putting aside the question of whether this was the deep state of the FBI playing favorites, it evokes the old aphorism that the alternative to bad isn’t necessarily good. It can always get worse. Even assuming the FBI, to some greater or lesser extent is compromised against Trump, it is still the mechanism the United States government relies upon to perform this function.
What could possibly make vetting by private companies more reliable or trustworthy? What could possibly make the mechanism of having nominees backgrounds investigated by private companies meld seamlessly with the Senate’s confirmation process? It raises a vast array of problems that never before existed and have no reliable solutions to be figured out “on the fly,” leaving the process wholly without tested reliability and in the hands of people whose loyalty is to whoever is paying the bills. Remember those foreign governments buying their piece of the Trump transition?
But then, it’s also worth remembering the time when Trump, exercising his own stroke of stable genius, invited Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak into the Oval Office.
Trump also reportedly boasted to the Russians about the intelligence he was receiving, telling the two men, “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day”:
“Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States learned only through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence-gathering method, but he described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.
Not only did Trump provide the means for a Sergey or two to slip spying devices into the couch, but he cluelessly spoke out of school to show off to the Russians, because he assumed they were as clueless as he was, giving up intelligence provided the United States by a partner who trusted us to keep it confidential. And then there’s Trump using his personal cellphone rather than the secure one provided him, because who would ever think to hack a president’s cellphone?
Regardless of how badly you want to believe that the FBI is compromised against Trump, its performance of the investigation and vetting function remains one of its core duties and a duty upon which both Dem and Rep counsel have justifiably relied. But then, if there’s to be concern shown that some nominee, whether named Tulsi or otherwise, has concerning sympathies for foreign dictators, the weakest link in the chain of national security may not be along the end of the chain but at its head. And once elected president, vetting no longer applies, which is good for Trump as it doesn’t appear he has a shot in hell of ever passing the vetting process as a person who wouldn’t compromise national security.
Elect a clown, expect a circus.
[Ed. Note: Balance of off-topic commentary deleted because reasons.]
OK, but tell me you didn’t smile, if not laugh outright.
Being targeted by the FBI for about ten years now for my investigative activities in Connecticut into the legal system, I have no fondness for the FBI. However, I see no reasonable alternative to its vetting candidates for government positions. The solution is — or perhaps better, remedy for possible misuse of vetting— transparency. What the FBI finds out about someone, if anything, should be the basis for questioning by Senators. If the individual doesn’t want to deal publicly with what the FBI says it found, the individual could withdraw his nomination. If the individual feels or is certain what the FBI says it found which may disqualify her or him is wrong or made up, the individual should be willing to deny it and present evidence contradicting what the FBI says is wrong; thus exposing possible and maybe even intended incompetence or bias by the FBI. In dealing with matters openly or knowing matters are going to be dealt with openly at some point, society rarely suffers.
Right. If you are not guilty, you have nothing to worry about. That is how it works when dealing with the FBI, the Police, the court system. (sarcasm)
Still, I agree background checks should be done.
If, which does seem to be the case recently, the FBI can’t be trusted to do their job properly and without bias why not start there and clean house first? Restore the agency to a non-partisan, non-political investigative bureau by removing those corrupting it from within. Granted, it will take years to restore the agency to what it should be and longer to restore the trust they have squandered but you have to start somewhere. Until then maybe use the Pinkertons?
When exactly did the FBI become partisan? When it investigated the only candidate whose campaign had over 200 contacts with the Russians during the 2016 Campaign? Or when it announced another investigation into Clinton just weeks before the 2016 election? Or when a President may have actually attempted to overturn a free and fair American election? The supposed “partisan” FBI is a figment of the conspiratorial MAGA mind or those lacking critical thought. There’s plenty to be critical of the FBI, partisan investigations are generally the least of them. And if it does happen, it’s due to political pressure by the President and AG, which we could argue, started during the Trump regime.
>When exactly did the FBI become partisan?
Did you miss the 1950s-1970s?
I’m not going down the rabbit hole of “is the FBI out to get the right?” but the idea that it’s utterly inconceivable that the organization that gave us COINTELPRO is anything other than a bastion of integrity is mind boggling.
Whether the FBI’s conduct relative to Biden and its investigatory integrity have anything to do with one another is unclear, but the FBI has certainly contributed to its credibility problems, much like the CDC with covid.
But the “answer” isn’t to dive blindly into the unknown, which will almost certainly create more/worse problems than with the FBI. Ironically, you keep reminding people “it can always get worse,” but the message never seems to sink in.
And then there’s Trump, and it’s unclear if he will ever grasp the nature of national security, given that he’s demonstrated no regard for it up to now.
No one ever said the FBI was above reproach, and definitely no one here, but it’s a long way from it’s got problems to its incapable of vetting senior administration officials. None of the complaints about the FBI have to do with its investigating nominees, so there’s no reason to take the leap from conspiracy theory to the FBI can’t do anything.
Is it better to have national security rely on a complete unknown rather than a known, but perhaps flawed, FBI? There may be no perfect answer, but the FBI is the far safer and more reliable choice by far.
The FBI illegally spied on Trump and his (proposed) cabinet back in 2016. The FBI (and Justice Dept.) chose to not prosecute Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden for egregious Title 18 violations, but enthusiastically pursued and prosecuted Trump and his supporters. The FBI withheld security clearance renewals from Trump-supporting FBI personnel. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago over a presidential records dispute.
[Ed. Note: I’m posting this not because any of it remotely reflects reality, but because it’s valuable to appreciate the psychotic delusions held by MAGA believers.]
Given the above FBI history, it is understandable why Trump would not trust them to be objective with their background checks of his proposed cabinet. Most of the nominees have already had background checks and clearances associated with their prior positions. The POTUS is the FINAL classification authority, so once Trump is sworn into office, he can grant access to anybody he wishes without FBI interference.
The majority who voted for Trump were voting for what he represents, and that is a giant middle finger to the establishment. The corrupt, out of control “intelligence” community is disliked and distrusted by most Americans, for good reasons, and they elected Trump to rein it in and to clean it up. Allowing one of the most corrupt components of this cancerous blob to blockade Trump’s agenda would be a miscalculation on his part.
You an sit there and whine about safety and reliability all you want; that’s what the establishment has promised for decades, and they haven’t delivered. The voters no longer believe in the establishment, and they have rejected it.
It is true that Trump is doing something unprecedented. He is making some moves toward fulfilling some of his campaign promises.
Don’t confuse your reason for voting for Trump with anyone else’s. Nevertheless, blowing up national security because you hate the establishment may be one of the most insanely idiotic things you’ve ever said, and that’s saying an awful lot. How do you not hurt yourself getting out of bed?
I’ve noticed that the MAGA commenters here are becoming bolder and more empowered. It concerns me that the nutjobs are feeling at home at SJ. Your tolerance of differing views is admirable, but maybe it’s time to set boundaries?
I’ve noticed it as well, and it concerns me. If it doesn’t improve, drastic action may be necessary.
The basic rule of not making people stupider is at existential risk here, if you catch my drift.
Trump likely views the FBI as having been infiltrated by his political enemies, and hence, he sees FBI background checks as simply an opportunity for “the resistance” to obstruct his appointees.
Ironic that of all Trump’s picks, you mention only Tulsi Gabbard by name (perhaps the only Trump pick that, as a sitting Lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, has been thoroughly vetted). Many, if not most Americans (like Tulsi Gabbard) have a serious disagreement(s) with the stated mission of the “US national security establishment”. Opposition to military involvement in the Middle East, or Ukraine, or even to membership in NATO does not make one a traitor, a useful idiot or a foreign agent. Nor does belief that the FBI has always been rotten to the core – from Hoover to COINTELPRO to Russiagate.
I’m not a Trump supporter. Didn’t vote for him in 2016, 2020 or 2024. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t win the election, and he doesn’t have the right to appoint the people he wants to his cabinet without, once again, getting kneepcapped by an FBI that has proven itself to be utterly corrupt. These nominees will still face a vote in the Senate, where senators can(at their own political peril) decide to vote against them based on the fact that they didn’t receive the benediction of the FBI.
[Ed. Note: The president has the right to nominate cabinet secretaries, but absolutely no right to get the people he wants, which is why the Constitution requires the Senate’s “advise and consent” for appointments. The Senate is not intended to be a rubber stamp. which would make the exercise pointless, even if this Senate turns out to lack the guts to do its job.]
Round Up the Usual Suspects: Unamed anoynmouus officials quoted in N.P.R. and The Washington Post.
Noone (that I can tell) is publicly on the record. If you want to save your country come out on the record.
Credibility Abounds.