Fauxcahontas Is On the Warpath Over Senate Confirmations

Committee member Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Ma., questions witnesses during a Senate Specials Committee on Aging hearing on drastic price hikes by Valeant and a handful of other drugmakers that have stoked outrage from patients, physicians and politicians nationwide, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 27, 2016,. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Elizabeth Warren is working her Native American fingers to the bone to create material for fundraising emails to the witless and unwary.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday called for the Senate to not hold confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks until after the completion of an ethics screening.

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And where there is a camera or ready cash you will find Chuck Schumer

“The Office of Government Ethics letter makes crystal-clear that the transition team’s collusion with Senate Republicans to jam through these Cabinet nominees before they’ve been thoroughly vetted is unprecedented,” Schumer said in a statement Saturday.

These are the facts.

1. There is no constitutional reason for the Office of Government Ethics to be meddling in how the US Senate conducts its business.
2. The law states that cabinet and sub-cabinet officials have until 30 days after their appointment, that is, their confirmation, to submit their required paperwork.
3. The OGE does not “clear” candidates.
4. Unlike a colleague at HotAir claims, the OGE does not do “background investigations.”
5. Trump has nominated these men and women and the scheduling of their confirmation hearings is a matter for the Senate majority leader and Trump’s transition liaison to negotiate.
6. The role of advise and consent and how it is carried out is the prerogative of the relevant Senate committee chairman.
7. If Schumer and Warren think the hearings should not proceed without this financial screening, they need to convince a majority of their committee to stop the hearing.
8. There is no conflict of interest possible unless the nominees are notified that is the case and refuse to take action to remedy it. Any conflict found beforehand is only relevant if the nominee refuses to remedy it.

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None of this is to say what the OGE does is not useful. It is. But if one of Trump’s nominees runs afoul of ethics standards that is on the nominee, it is not within the authority of this office to “vet” presidential nominees.

But this unholy uproar by the Democrats means only one thing. They were relying on information from Obama’s man in the OGE to give them information that they could use to try to damage nominees. And, as we’ve seen, he’s pissed that he’s not being allowed to play his part.

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