Republican sources on Capitol Hill warn that President-elect Trump’s nominations could be delayed due to paper backlogs and the slow start to FBI background checks, creating obstacles to the quick confirmation of Trump’s national security team.
Senate Republican leaders urged their colleagues to quickly confirm Trump’s national security team after the suspected terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, but those pleas for quick action are running into procedural thickets in the Senate, where even routine matters can take days or weeks to complete it’s finished.
As of Thursday evening, only Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, had announced the date of his confirmation hearing – January 14.
Other nominees, including two of Trump’s most controversial picks – Tulsi Gabbard, nominated to be director of national intelligence, and Kash Patel, nominated to be FBI director – are currently in limbo.
Republican aides and strategists in the Senate say Gabbard’s nomination to be the country’s intelligence chief faces a rocky road in the upper house.
Meanwhile, Patel appears to have enough momentum to win Senate confirmation, but his nomination will wait while the Senate Judiciary Committee first considers former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s nomination to lead the Justice Department.
“It has been challenging to complete background checks and prepare Office of Government Ethics Form 278 for nominees, and that has slowed work for a number of committees,” a Senate GOP aide said.
The adviser said the Trump transition team was slow to sign memorandums of understanding with the Justice Department to pave the way for FBI background checks and was hesitant to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration to allow access to office space, e-mail. Getting government computers into mail accounts, phones, etc. has slowed down the process.
“You have to do the ethics paperwork and the FBI background check, and that took longer than it should have,” the source said. “You should know better. This has a lot to do with the way the transition team works. It caused some of these delays. These are self-inflicted delays.”
A Senate Democratic aide confirmed that FBI background checks for key national security nominees had been delayed since just before Christmas.
However, a senior Republican strategist working with the transition team defended the handling of Trump’s high-profile nominees, pointing out that they were in the midst of FBI background checks and working directly with the Office of Government Ethics and department ethics officers due to possible conflicts of interest.
The strategist said the slow start date of FBI background checks presents less of an obstacle to Trump’s nominees moving quickly through the Senate and argued that the length of those investigations will be more crucial to the nominees’ confirmation deadlines.
A spokesman for the transition team did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
Several Republican senators, including Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, say they want the FBI to conduct full and thorough background checks on high-profile candidates — particularly those who would fill key national security positions. before they are voted on in committee and in plenary.
But pressure is growing on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to move Trump’s national security nominees to a quick vote following a high-profile attack on revelers in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter this week.
A second incident rocked National New Year’s Day when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Thune called the shooting that left 14 people dead in New Orleans a “senseless terrorist attack” and called for “clear answers from the government.”
“The threat posed by ISIS will outlast this administration, and this is a clear example of why the Senate must deploy President Trump’s national security team as quickly as possible,” he said.
Senate Republican Leader John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) echoed that call.
“The U.S. Senate must confirm President Trump’s national security team as quickly as possible. Lives depend on it,” he posted on the social platform X.
A second Republican strategist helping Trump’s nominee get through the Senate said Trump advisers are wary of how the FBI and Office of Government Ethics (OGE) will handle Trump’s nominee while they are still under the influence of the Biden White House.
“From Trump’s perspective, until she takes over leadership of OGE, there is concern about what OGE will do under a Biden administration. That was the big problem with FBI background checks. They were skeptical of this FBI with this director [in] “I’m tasked with reviewing Trump nominations,” the source said.
The strategist also warned that Gabbard, a former Democratic representative from Hawaii who sponsored legislation to repeal the Patriot Act and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, faces deep skepticism from Republican and Democratic senators.
The strategist said if Republicans try to derail Gabbard’s nomination, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could take the lead.
“I don’t think Republicans are that worried about Kash,” the source said. “The pressure to keep going will be great [the Department of Justice]the FBI, [director of national intelligence] and the CIA.”
Trump’s nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, former Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), is expected to get through the Senate without much opposition. He previously served as Director of National Intelligence from May 2020 to January 2021.
Much will depend on how Gabbard performs in her face-to-face meeting with Sen. Mark Warner (R-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. This meeting is scheduled for Monday.
The strategist said the Trump transition team and Senate committees appear to be in no rush to move Trump’s domestic nominees as lawmakers become more focused on decisions related to national security and homeland security.
“There doesn’t appear to be a rush for the domestic nominees in HELP or finance. I think the priority is the national security candidates,” the strategist said, referring to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Finance Committee.
The Senate Finance Committee has not yet announced the dates of its confirmation hearings on Trump’s picks to lead the Treasury, Health and Human Services departments and the U.S. Trade Representative role.
The president-elect has tapped hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, public health lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and trade lawyer Jamieson Greer to lead these agencies.
Republican advisers point out that other potential problems could delay Trump’s nominations.
Senate committees cannot do business without unanimous consent until Thune and Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) agree on an organizing resolution to lay the groundwork for the upcoming 119th Congress.
And even if nominees testify at their confirmation hearings, any individual senator can delay the committee vote on the nominee for a week.
Democrats can delay the proceedings further by refusing to give back the floor’s procedural time.
But Schumer promised in a letter to Thune last year that Democrats were willing to work across party lines to process nominees as long as they were subject to full vetting.
“Senate Democrats are ready and willing to work with Senate Republicans to provide advice and consent as we evaluate all of the new President’s nominations,” Schumer wrote.
“Specifically, we are committed to working in a bipartisan manner to process each nominee by reviewing standard FBI background investigation materials, scheduling judicial committee hearings and markups, and considering nominees in the Senate,” he promised.
