Democrats may force floor fight over Trump nominees

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., told CNN he’s worried that some of Trump’s nominees have not turned in their ethics reports, questionnaires or Federal Bureau of Investigation background checks into the relevant committees before their confirmation hearings. Those hearings are set to begin this week.

He said senators can’t properly question nominees without those documents and, since Democrats can’t change the hearing dates or stop the nominees from moving to the floor, they may have to fight a procedural battle instead.

“We can exercise our ability to use the rules from the floor, which we can’t stop the nominees but we can use up a fair amount of time in the process of vetting them on the floor of the Senate,” Merkley said. “I think we’re going to take advantage of the rules because we need to know what’s going on and the American people need to know what’s going on.”

The director of the Office of Government Ethics sent a letter to top senators last week warning them that Republicans were rushing Trump’s nominees through.

According to the letter, Director Walter Schaub said there are “several nominees” who had not completed the ethics review process and he had “great concerns” about proceeding before that was finished.

“It has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings,” Schaub wrote.

Merkley said those reports are the foundation of confirmation hearings and should be finished before going forward. He speculated the GOP may be trying to breeze through the process in order to avoid some hidden controversy.

“A piece of it certainly is how late the nominations occurred, but I think there may be a lot of foot dragging here,” he said. “And, I think this is what we don’t know: What is being covered up by trying to hold the hearings before getting the information before the members?”