WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Senate Democrats expressed concern Wednesday that Republicans scheduled a hearing for one of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees before he completed required paperwork and an FBI background check.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Martin Heinrich separately criticized the decision, saying it sets a troubling precedent.
“Yesterday, the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee attended a hearing for Gov. Doug Burgum to be the new Secretary of the Interior, without minority approval, as has long been standard practice,” Schumer said during a speech. “Senate Democrats on the committee expressed reasonable objections to continuing this hearing because the committee has not yet received basic information about Governor Burgum’s background.”
Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, released a written statement saying he was extremely disappointed. Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee, chairman of the committee, scheduled the hearing for Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota.
“The Senate has a constitutional duty to consider and, if it so chooses, to approve the President’s nominees. This requires careful consideration of each nominee,” Heinrich wrote. “To accomplish this, for decades nominees presented to the ENR Committee have been required to submit responses to a standard questionnaire and a completed financial disclosure form, approval from the Department’s Office of Ethics, and completion of an FBI background check. Until these steps are completed, I will not agree to announce nomination hearings.
“Every candidate, every party, every government should be held to the same standards. I would urge Chairman Lee to reconsider his decision.”
A spokesman for the committee said Heinrich had not yet received confirmation that the FBI had completed its background check on Burgum.
Heinrich has also not received Burgum’s Form 278e financial disclosure report or documents from the Office of Government Ethics indicating that its staff has reviewed his financial disclosures and ethics agreements and believes he is complying with ethics laws as required by the Ethics Office. Ethics in Government Act,” he said.
Lee wrote in his own statement that it was “disappointing to see Ranking Member Heinrich attempting to delay the issuance of a hearing notice instead of focusing on delivering what voters demanded in November’s election: the Restoring American energy dominance after years of high energy prices and policy failures.”
“Governor Burgum submitted his documents to the Office of Government Ethics last week, and the committee has the same amount of documents as Energy and Natural Resources Committee Democrats did in 2009 when they saw confirmation hearings,” Lee wrote. “As Chairman, I have made every effort to work with our Democratic colleagues, but we will not give in to delays that undermine the mandate of the American people. It’s time to move forward and focus on solutions that unlock America’s full energy potential, and I hope Democrats will work with us to deliver results for the American people.”
The hearing in Burgum is expected next week
Burgum’s hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, making it one of the first hearings for one of Trump’s nominees. Trump announced in November that he wanted Burgum, who ended his second term as governor of North Dakota in December, to lead the Interior Department.
Burgum, 68, graduated from North Dakota State University in 1978 before attending Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 1980, where he received a Master of Business Administration.
He worked at Great Plains Software and became CEO before Microsoft bought the company in 2001. Burgum then worked as senior vice president for this company until 2007. A year later, he co-founded the venture capital firm Arthur Ventures.
Yahoo Finance estimated in 2002 that Burgum’s net worth was about $1.1 billion.
Burgum was first elected governor of North Dakota in 2016 with 76.5% of the vote and was re-elected in 2020 with 65.8%.
Other confirmation hearings scheduled for Tuesday include a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing for former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, who Trump plans to nominate for VA secretaryand an Armed Services Committee hearing for Pete Hegseth, the Trump wants to lead the Defense Department.
The confirmation process is expected to continue Wednesday with hearings on Trump’s election Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of South Dakota, in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; his selection for Secretary of State Marco Rubio of Florida, on the Foreign Relations Committee; and the choice for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Voughtin the Homeland Security Committee.
More are likely to be scheduled in the coming days and weeks, but the Senate cannot vote on the nominees until after Trump takes the oath of office on January 20.
No hearing yet for RFK Jr.
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy said in a brief interview earlier this week that he did not know when the committee would begin hearings with Trump’s nominees for public health agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as they had not yet completed their paperwork and background checks.
The Louisiana Republican said he hoped to begin hearings before the end of January, but wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
“The only reason I’m hesitant is because we obviously have other hearings and I’m not sure we’ve received everything we need to receive. So some of that is out of my hands,” Cassidy said.
Other committees, he said, were also waiting for paperwork and background checks on some of Trump’s nominees before scheduling hearings.
“I know other committees have had problems because they haven’t received everything they need. In this case, I have no influence on that process,” Cassidy said.
The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, also known as avian influenza or H5N1, is one of the reasons Cassidy cited for wanting to quickly confirm the public health candidates.
“Well, H5N1 is absolutely serious. And of course you want to get people in there, you want it to be the right person over and over again,” Cassidy said. “That’s why I think we proceed with all due haste.”
Louisiana reported the country’s first death linked to the ongoing bird flu outbreak on Monday, shortly after Cassidy made his comments about the confirmation process.
Cassidy met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Servicesin the senator’s office on Capitol Hill, a typical part of the nomination process.
Cassidy, a doctor who earned his medical degree from Louisiana State University Medical School in 1983, wrote on social media Afterwards he had “an open conversation” with Kennedy.
“We discussed vaccines at length,” Cassidy wrote. “I look forward to the hearings in HELP and Finance.”
Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.
Last updated on January 8, 2025 at 4:13 p.m
