For the people who have it so hard turned on the fbi for allegedly targeting Donald Trump over the years, Republicans will surely be quick to turn to office when they need a cover-up, i.e. a background check to save a problematic Trump pick for high office.
In October 2018, the recipient was Brett M. Kavanaugh. Then-President Trump and a Republican majority in the Senate ordered the FBI to investigate sexual assault allegations against the Supreme Court nominee to placate Republican senators whose threatened opposition could sink his nomination.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
But as I learned while researching a book at the time, the Trump White House told the FBI who its agents could contact, ignoring willing witnesses with damning information, and gave them just a few days to finish. The office's sloppy Kavanaugh report, which simply summarized the agents' interviews without drawing conclusions, was enough political cover for Trump and Senate Republicans to falsely claim he had been exonerated. Democrats correctly insisted otherwise. However, it was his word against the Republicans', as the senators' exclusive report remains secret to this day.
And Kavanaugh, comfortably ensconced in his lifetime position on the nation's highest court, voted last Thursday (fortunately on the losing side) in favor of blocking Trump's sentencing for covering up money payments to a porn star to maintain her silence.
Trump hasn't even returned to the White House and has already repeated the FBI letter (call it the Trump letter) and again apparently with success, this time over his manifestly unsuitable choice for Secretary of Defense, the former Fox News host and former official of the National Guard, Pete. Hegseth. With another incomplete, half-hearted and secret FBI background check related to alleged sexual assault and excessive alcohol consumption, Hegseth made it through his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday without a dissenting voice from the Armed Services Committee's Republican majority.
That Hegseth, once considered a dead candidate walkingthat he now appears likely to be confirmed is an embarrassment to the Senate. In 1989, Texas Republican John Tower's reputation as a womanizer and drinker led him to refused as President George HW Bush's defense candidate, and Tower was also a senator. However, in the Trump era, Republican senators would rather abandon their constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to presidential nominations than confront the vengeful Trump. But few are fooled: many, if not most, Republicans know that Hegseth has no business atop the Pentagon, with its nearly 3 million employees and $900 billion annual budget.
As for Trump, the Hegseth episode is evidence just days before his inauguration on Monday that the returning president will again abuse his powers over government departments, probably more than in his first term.
After all, the 6-3 right-wing supermajority he built on the Supreme Court has since conferred immunity on Trump and future presidents for crimes committed under the guise of official acts. And unlike his first term, Trump is hiring proven sycophants.
Just compare Hegseth to Trump's first Secretary of Defense, James N. Mattis, a four-star Marine general, commander in the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq and, out of combat, a top Pentagon official. Mattis lasted two years before. resign in protest of principles by Trump's erratic military decisions. It's a safe bet that Trump couldn't have chosen someone as flawed and flawed as Hegseth at the beginning of his first term – before his complete subjugation of the Republican Party – for fear of bipartisan rejection.
One more lesson from this sorry saga (although I have no hope of it being learned): it is time to stop the charade of mandating FBI background checks that are not background checks, and presenting them as seals of approval for undeserved presidential elections.
Initially, the Trump team opposite The FBI is investigating the president-elect's controversial cabinet picks. But the Mar-a-Lago mafia later reconsidered media reports of Hegseth's alleged sexual misconduct, repeated public drunkenness and financial mismanagement of two small groups of veterans appeared everything but doom your chances of confirmation. In December, the Trump transition team official the FBI to “investigate” Hegseth.
All sides followed the Kavanaugh investigative playbook: Trump's team, as an FBI client, told the agency who to question. the office ignored othersaccording to Democrats informed by those who had access to the report. For example: the woman with whom Hegseth had reached a financial settlement in 2020 for an alleged rape in Monterey, California, in 2017 (which Hegseth denied); the second of Hegseth's three wives, who tried in vain to speak with the agents after superficial contact; whistleblowers from the veterans groups from which Hegseth was expelled; and Fox News employees who had described their drinking at work just a few months ago.
Still, Trump and his Republican allies were satisfied, including Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, a veteran and survivor of sexual assault who, along with other early critics of Hegseth, was allegedly subjected to a punishment pressure campaign by Trump's allies.
And the report remains secret, more secret than Kavanaugh's, which all senators were able to read. Hegseth's findings went alone to the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the Armed Services Committee, as Team Trump dictation. Democratic Committee Member, Senator Elizabeth Warren protested on CNN: “Show us. If there is no negative information, they should be willing to frame it and hang it on the wall.”
Exactly.
Throughout his hearing, Hegseth's false mantra about all the accusations against him was “anonymous smears” (many were not anonymous), even as he implicitly acknowledged the truth of them by repeatedly insisting that his is a “story.” of redemption.” As Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said, noted: “It can't be both.” Kelly added: “You know the truth would disqualify you from getting the job.”
On Monday, the committee is expected to approve Hegseth's nomination and send it to the full Senate. Expect him to be confirmed on a party-line vote, including by senators who will approvingly cite an FBI background check they haven't even read.
@jackiekcalmes
