The roster of Trump administration Cabinet officials is littered with the term "acting." In fact, Trump has failed to pick nominees for nearly one in every five Senate-confirmed administration posts. But when it came to the plum position of IRS general counsel, Trump was in a hurry, according to the New York Times. Such a hurry that in early February he pushed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to fast-track Trump’s nomination of Michael Desmond to the position ahead of his pick for the clearly less important position of attorney general, William Barr. McConnell prioritized Barr, but by the end of February, both men had been confirmed.
Gee. What could possibly be driving Trump's urgency? Maybe the fact that House Democrats promised on election night last year to seek Trump's tax returns—a request they finally made this week. Or perhaps more specifically, Trump's early-February appeal came right around the time House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff announced a reboot of the panel's Russia investigation, putting more scrutiny on Trump's financial ties to the Kremlin.
Any guesses as to whether Trump has any unethical reasons for appointing Desmond to the position? But of course. Bloomberg reported last year that Desmond's spokesperson said he had advised the Trump Organization on a "discrete reporting matter for a subsidiary company that was resolved with no tax impact." He's also worked with Trump Organization tax counsels William Nelson and Sheri Dillon.
Trump has now installed two loyalists in the agency from which Democrats just requested six years of Trump's tax returns: Desmond as general counsel and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, who penned a 2016 op-ed arguing against Trump releasing his tax returns.
As for all those other administration posts—they’ll be filled when Trump has something personal at stake, probably involving money and/or prison.