Donald Trump may have tweeted this morning that his Cabinet nominees “are looking good and doing a great job!”, but the facts are a different matter. First up, from John Nichols, an overview of Rex Tillerson’s poor performance at his confirmation hearing:
Rex Tillerson’s witless, contradictory, and obfuscatory testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmed fears that the ExxonMobil CEO is too conflicted, too ill-prepared, and too disengaged from accepted understandings with regard to diplomacy, sustainable development, and human rights to be seriously considered for the position of secretary of state. [...]
No matter what citizens and senators think of Trump or Tillerson, no matter what citizens and senators think about US relations with Russia and the issues that have arisen with regard to those relations, the notion that a corporate CEO would accept a nomination to serve as secretary of state without engaging in extended and serious discussions about major issues should be greeted with shock and dismay.
Karen Tumulty, meanwhile, highlights the major disconnect between Trump and what his nominees are saying under oath:
Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, in their first round of confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, have one after another contradicted the president-elect on key issues, promising to trim back or disregard some of the signature promises on which he campaigned.
A fresh set of examples came Thursday, the third day of hearings.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States must honor the “imperfect arms-control agreement” with Iran that Trump has vowed to dismantle because “when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”
He also took a more adversarial stance than Trump has toward Russian President Vladimir Putin and cited Moscow as one of the nation’s top threats.
On the issues of transparency and conflicts of interest, Senator Ron Wyden pens an op-ed on the need for Trump to release his taxes:
His stated excuse about being under audit doesn’t pass the smell test. Previous presidents and nominees have released their returns under the same circumstances.
That’s why I and dozens of congressional colleagues have introduced legislation to force future presidential nominees and presidents to release their tax returns. As representatives of the people, if we can’t trust the executive branch to act ethically, we must force it to do so. [...] He must ensure that a Trump administration will not return us to the days of Richard M. Nixon, or, worse, the scandal-ridden term of Warren G. Harding.
To do so, Mr. Trump must face the fact that independent nonpartisan bodies like the Office of Government Ethics are not out to get him; they are here to help him govern according to the rule of law. Mr. Trump chose to run for president, he won and is about to assume office as the most powerful man in the world. His responsibility now is the American people, not his family, his companies or his own bottom line.
Timothy Egan also focuses on the lack of tax returns and Trump’s evasiveness:
His tweets are a diversion, many of them celebrity-on-celebrity drivel without a dust mite of dignity. They move markets, and ignite news cycles — an addictive power for an insecure man. His Trump Tower perp walks, showing off the latest poor soul to kiss the king’s ring, reveal little but the everyday nourishment needs of a narcissist. [...]
His tax returns could reveal many of those opportunities to enrich himself from the Oval Office. But he refuses to release this vital information. He never answered two essential questions of the transition: What will he replace Obamacare with? And, did anyone in his campaign have contact with Russian operatives working to ensure that Hillary Clinton would not get elected?
Watch. Trump mentioned that over the weekend he was offered a $2 billion deal with Dubai, which sounds like a bribe. Don’t worry, the Trump organization will not do deals abroad while he’s president, he said. But he will be making decisions that can fatten his own family holdings at home, and he will be conducting foreign policy with countries where the Trumps have business entanglements.
On the subject of the investigation into the FBI’s behavior during the election, Jeffrey Toobin looks at the political reality:
It is well within the realm of possibility that the Trump Administration will kill this investigation before it even begins. The President-elect clearly believes that all the recent attention paid to the hacking of the Clinton campaign’s e-mails, apparently by Russian forces, was contrived to deprive him of the legitimacy he so craves. It’s easy to imagine that he will view the investigation of Comey the same way, since so many people have attributed Trump’s election to that last-minute development, rather than to his campaign. The only thing standing in the way of his firing the inspector general is a political norm, and Trump has shown gleeful disdain for such standards. In a similar vein, Sessions (or his deputy) could decide to prohibit the inspector general from conducting this inquiry.
On a final note, Eugene Robinson writes an eloquent column about the Obamas:
The White House is really a glass house, and for eight years we have watched the Obamas live their lives in full public view. We’ve seen a president age, his hair graying and his once-unlined face developing a wrinkle here, a furrow there. We’ve seen a first lady change hairstyles and model an array of designer gowns. We’ve seen two little girls grow into young women.
We’ve seen it all before — except that we’ve never seen an African American family in these roles. Images of the Obamas performing the duties of the first family are indelible, and I believe they will be one of the administration’s most important and lasting legacies.