President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Archives failed to make it out of committee Wednesday as the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort complicates what is typically a routine confirmation process.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee deadlocked in a 7-7 party-line vote on whether to advance nominee Colleen Shogan, who testified before senators last Wednesday.
The National Archives and Records Administration has come under Republican scrutiny since the agency warned the Justice Department that government records it obtained from Donald Trump had classified markings on them. The DOJ is currently investigating the former president’s handling of government records.
BIDEN NATIONAL ARCHIVES NOMINEE FACES MAR-A-LAGO RAID SCRUTINY DURING CONFIRMATION HEARING
Wednesday’s tied vote means Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will need to move to discharge the nomination out of committee, delaying the process.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-MI) but did not receive a response.
Ranking member Rob Portman (R-OH) portrayed Shogan as partisan during last week’s hearing, raising concerns over past statements she made about the intelligence of Republican presidents, including George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, as well as a 2007 article in which she said, “Republicans tend to exhibit anti-intellectual qualities.”
Shogan maintained that the senator was taking her writings out of context and that she had a track record of “15 years of nonpartisan government.”
Republican committee members also used the confirmation hearing to press Shogan about the alleged politicization of NARA after the agency turned over its records investigation into Trump over to the Justice Department, leading to the FBI’s Aug. 8 raid.
“I want to be clear that as the nominee for this position, I have not been briefed on any of the details,” Shogan told Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who pressed her on NARA’s ties to the raid. “But as I understand it, when there is some concern about damage to records in general at the National Archives, at that point in time, to retrieve the records, there is a voluntary exchange of communication with those individuals. And as I understand that, once again, they don’t have any past knowledge of this.”
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If confirmed, Shogan will replace acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall, who has headed the agency since David Ferriero retired in April. The archivist is responsible for preserving founding documents, including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as well as documents from each presidential administration.
