Trump's Cabinet nominees get their day before Senate, as partisan wrangling intensifies

Confirmation hearings begin this week on Capitol Hill for Alabama Sen. Jeff Session as U.S. attorney general and other Cabinet picks from President-elect Donald Trump -- amid increasing partisan threats about derailing nominees and calls to keep politics out of the process.
The most recent exchange began Saturday when Democrats called for a delay in the hearings -- including at least seven this week -- because several of Trump’s nominees have purportedly failed to complete ethics reviews to avoid conflicts of interest.
Democrats called for the delay based on letter this weekend from the Office of Government Ethics to Senate leaders stating that some of the nominees scheduled for hearings have yet to complete their ethics review process.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday the complaints are merely “procedural” and are being raised by Democrats frustrated about him and fellow Republicans now controlling the House, Senate and White House.
"I understand that. But we need to sort of grow up here and get past that,” the Kentucky senator told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “We confirmed seven Cabinet appointments the day President Obama was sworn in. We didn't like most of them either. But he won the election.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the ethics review is to ensuring wealthy Cabinet members work for the American people instead of "their own bottom line and that they plan to fully comply with the law."
Republicans are intent on getting as many Trump nominees through the arduous confirmation process before the incoming Republican president takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.
Several of Trump’s picks are wealth Americans with far-reaching business connections -- Republican mega-donor Betsy DeVos, for education secretary; ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson, for secretary of state; Billionaire private-equity investor Wilbur Ross, for commerce secretary and former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin for treasury secretary.
Despite all of the wrangling ahead of the Senate confirmation hearings, Trump’s nominees will almost certainly get enough votes in the chamber's GOP-led committees. However, they could run into delays when both parties cast final votes on the Senate floor, despite needing only 51 “yeahs.”
Democrats could use procedural moves to extend the debate on each of the nominees. But they don’t have the power to use the filibuster to block the nominations, because in the last Congress they changed the threshold on such filibusters from 60 to 51 votes.
The hearings begin Tuesday with Sessions in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the same panel that in 1986 denied him a federal judgeship, following allegations that he had made racist remarks and called the NAACP "un-American."
Still, Session, an immigration hawk and the first U.S. Senator to endorse Trump, a fellow Republican, is expected to be confirmed without much delay or fight.
Still, civil rights groups are urging a thorough vetting of Sessions. Last week, NAACP President Cornell William Brooks and other group members were arrested after a sit-in protest in Sessions' Mobile, Alabama, office, and could do something similar on Capitol Hill.
The two-day hearing includes a day for Sessions to address the committee, and a day for rebuttal witnesses from those opposing his nomination.
Session will be followed Tuesday by retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the nominee for the post of Homeland Security secretary.
Tillerson’s hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to run the State Department, arguable the most important and high-profile Cabinet post, could be the most contentious.
His job leading oil giant ExxonMobile, which included deals with Russia and connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is raising concerns, especially after a recent U.S. intelligence report stated both meddled in this year’s presidential election.
However, the expected showdown with Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain -- who last week suggested he’d vote for Tillerson when “pigs fly” -- appears less likely.
McCain said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that still has questions but that a meeting last week with Tillerson eased concerns.
“Every president should have the benefit of the doubt as to their nominees,” he said. “So there has to be a compelling reason not” to vote for him.
Democrats and others argue that Ross, who founded the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., is the type of Wall Street tycoon that Trump has vowed to keep out of Washington.
But Ross' record has so far shown no potentially damaging conflicts of interest.
Schumer and other Democrats have purportedly targeted DeVos, Sessions and Tillerson as well as Mnuchin and South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, for the Office of Management -- whose hearings have yet to be scheduled.
“If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they’re sorely mistaken,” Schumer said last week.
One of the committees that hasn't yet received the ethics review forms is the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will hold the DeVos hearings.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said it had also not received the forms for Ross, though a spokeswoman said they expect them soon.
Committee aides said they have received ethics forms for Sessions, Tillerson, Treasury Secretary nominee and retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis and Elaine Chao, for transportation secretary.
The Government Ethics office did not list which of Trump's Cabinet choices hadn't turned in their disclosures.
Other confirmation hearings next week include Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, for director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Ben Carson for housing secretary.

Trump pick for secretary of state to face tough scrutiny over Russian ties

Tensions over President-elect Donald Trump’s favorable Russian views and the upcoming Senate confirmation hearing for prospective secretary of state Rex Tillerson is expected to boil over in the days ahead.
Top Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that they plan to continue with new sanctions on Russia despite the potential to possibly alienate Trump and his ideas for warming ties between the U.S. and Russia.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump and his top aides have planned to downplay Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election which was pointed out in a U.S. intelligence report released Friday. The Russian divide in Congress would certainly get Trump’s presidency off to a rocky start.
Concerns over Russia are expected to come into the light during Tillerson’s confirmation hearing. Graham and McCain both agreed that they still had questions about Tillerson even after so-called “positive meetings” with the Exxon-Mobil executive. Tillerson’s Russian ties are expected to be scrutinized heavily.
“Mr. Tillerson has got to convince me and I think other members of the body, that he sees Russia as a disruptive force, that he sees Putin as undermining democracy all over the world, not just in our backyard,” Graham added. “He has to realize that the Russians did it when it came to the hacking and that new sanctions are justified.”
Trump has yet to accept the intelligence briefing that pointed at Moscow for interfering with the presidential election. He said in a series of tweets Sunday that it wasn’t bad to have a relationship with Russia.
“Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We have enough problems around the world without yet another one,” he added. “When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!”
Should Tillerson’s confirmation be rejected, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. The Journal noted that only three potential cabinet picks have been rejected in the 20th century. The last rejection came in 1989 during George H.W. Bush’s presidency when his secretary of defense pick was rejected by a Democratic Senate.

More on this...

• Just like old times? Tillerson pick could spur tensions with GOP Senate

• Why Rex Tillerson would be a disaster as Secretary of State

• Trump taps Tillerson for secretary of State, confirmation fight looms

Tillerson has received some support outside Congress. He’s received the backing up former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice.
A Republican-held Senate would need three total dissenters to possibly vote down Tillerson as the pick, if Democrats hold united. Graham and McCain would have to lure another senator onto their side.
With a showdown looming in the Senate, a fight over Russian ties isn’t going away.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter told “Meet the Press” that Russia didn’t help U.S.-allied forces in Syria one bit in the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Carter said that Russia had promised to help fight extremists and help end the Syrian civil war. Instead, he said, Russia “doubled down on the Syrian civil war.”

Meryl Streep, Jimmy Fallon and more use Golden Globes stage to slam Trump

Idiots

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, some liberal stars were determined to use the 74th annual Golden Globes to have the last word 12 days before Trump is sworn into office.
During a night that saw "Moonlight," "La La Land," "The Crown" and "Atlanta" win big it was the next president of the United States that got the most attention.
Just minutes into the show, host Jimmy Fallon used his time on stage to take digs at Trump after he was forced to improvise for the first few minutes of the show due to a broken teleprompter.
Once his script was up and running, Fallon called the Golden Globes "one of the few places left where America still honors the popular vote." That, though, isn't quite true. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a collection of 85 members, has its own methods of selecting winners.
TECHNICAL GLITCH MARS JIMMY FALLON'S GOLDEN GLOBES MONOLOGUE
Fallon often used the President-elect as a punchline, even comparing him to belligerent and cruel "Games of Thrones" King Joffrey, but Meryl Streep changed the tone of the evening when she launched into a somber speech about Trump.
Streep said Trump's behavior "sank its hooks in my heart" and she slammed what she called Trump's "instinct to humiliate." She asked for a "principled press to hold Trump [accountable]" and to call him out "for every outrage." Her comments were met with applause, tears and support by her fellow actors in the audience. Actor Chris Pine called her speech the "best message of tonight."
Hugh Laurie, accepting his award for best supporting actor in a limited series or TV film for "The Night Manager," speculated that this would perhaps be the last Golden Globes ceremony.

"I don't mean to be gloomy, but it has the words 'Hollywood,' 'foreign' and 'press' in the title," Laurie said, explaining his pessimism about the awards surviving the Trump era. He added that some Republicans don't even like the word "association."
He accepted his award "on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere."
The night's top winner was Damien Chazelle's lauded Los Angeles musical "La La Land," which took home seven awards. Ryan Gosling won for best actor in a musical or comedy, and "La La Land" composer Justin Hurwitz won best score and its lyricists, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, won for best original song, "City of Stars."
Meanwhile, "Moonlight" won the award for the best motion picture drama.
Casey Anthony won best actor in a motion picture drama for "Manchester by the Sea," and Isabelle Huppert won best actress in a motion picture drama for "Elle."
Viola Davis won best supporting actress for "Fences," and British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson took best supporting actor for his performance in Tom Ford's "Nocturnal Animals."
2017 GOLDEN GLOBES: SO HOT OR SO NOT?
On the TV side, "The People v. O.J. Simpson" took home the best miniseries award, as well as an award for Sarah Paulson.
Donald Glover looked visibly surprised when his FX series "Atlanta" won best comedy series over heavyweights like "Veep" and "Transparent."
Other winners were Tracee Ellis Ross ("Black-ish") and Billy Bob Thornton ("Goliath").

Megyn Kelly Cartoons

Russians scoff at US report on election meddling

Russian politicians and news media are scoffing that the recently released report by U.S. security services blaming the country’s government of meddling in the U.S. presidential race.
Alexei Pushkov, a member of the upper house of parliament's defense and security committee, said on Twitter that "all the accusations against Russia are based on 'confidence' and suppositions. The USA in the same way was confident about (Iraqi leader Saddam) Hussein having weapons of mass destruction."
In another tweet on Saturday, Pushkov suggested that President "Obama is alarmed: Republicans trust Putin more than Democrats."
Margarita Simonyan, the editor of government-funded satellite TV channel RT that is frequently mentioned in the U.S. report, said in a blog post: "Dear CIA: what you have written here is a complete fail."
On Friday, a declassified U.S. intelligence report accused Putin of ordering a campaign to influence the U.S. election and hurt 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s candidacy -- findings made public after officials briefed President-elect Donald Trump.
The report adds fresh fuel to the debate over Russia’s involvement in email hacking that affected Democratic groups during the 2016 race. Trump has publicly questioned the evidence linking Russia.
And hours before the briefing, Trump called it a “political witch hunt.”
However, Trump and the intelligence community seemed to find some common ground after the briefing. Both Trump and the report said the Russians did not target vote tallying.
Trump, in a statement, went a step further and said “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”

A day after, Trump renewed his call for better Washington-Moscow relations and suggested naysayers are “fools” or “stupid people.”
“Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only "stupid" people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We … have enough problems around the world without yet another one. When I am president, Russia will respect us far …
“more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!,” Trump tweeted.

Megyn Kelly Leaving Fox For Liberal NBC?

Don’t you just love how the Left is star-struck over Megyn Kelly? Wonder why? Could it be her schmoozing at parties with Barack Obama… or her revealing photo shoots… or her skewed grilling of Donald Trump… or perhaps the fact that right after that debate, she predicted that Hillary Clinton would ascend to the White House? That Republicans would lose in 2016? That doesn’t sound very unbiased to me – it sounds, well, almost Leftish, if you get my drift. Kelly is making a whopping $6.7 million a year at Fox. She is the face of Fox News currently. Some of these networks are offering her double that and her contract expires in 2017. Wonder just what she’ll do. You could very well see her over at CNN or NBC. I imagine that ‘Fair and Balanced’ is a financially and a politically driven concept. Over 50,000 people have now signed a petition for Kelly never to moderate another debate on Fox News. That’s a message loud and clear, don’t you think? While the media elites may be all gaga over Kelly, conservatives are not so smitten with her tactics.

Was Friday's declassified report claiming Russian hacking of the 2016 election rigged?

Friday night, during her last show on Fox News, Megyn Kelly asked former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra whether he accepted the conclusion by 17 intelligence agencies in a recently released declassified report that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and that this interference came at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hoekstra gave an answer many viewers of "The Kelly File" did not anticipate.  He noted that the declassified report represents the views of only three intelligence agencies, not seventeen. Hoekstra also questioned why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not co-author or clear the report and why it lacked dissenting views.
The declassified report issued on January 6 is an abridged version of a longer report ordered by President Obama that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to undermine the 2016 president election, hurt Hillary’s candidacy and promote Donald Trump through cyber warfare, social media and the state-owned Russia cable channel RT. Although the report’s authors said they have high confidence in most of these conclusions, they were unable to include any evidence for classification reasons.
As someone who worked in the intelligence field for 25 years, I share Congressman Hoekstra’s concerns about Friday’s declassified Russia report and a similar Joint DHS and ODNI Election Security Statement released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and DHS on October 7, 2016.

I also suspect the entire purpose of this report and its timing was to provide President Obama with a supposedly objective intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election that the president could release before he left office to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s election.

I am concerned both intelligence assessments were rigged for political purposes.
You may remember when Hillary Clinton claimed during the final presidential debate on October 19 that based on the October 7 ODNI/DHS statement, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had determined the WikiLeaks disclosures of Democratic emails were an effort by Russia to interfere with the election.
Clinton’s remark was not accurate. Although the October memo said “the U.S. Intelligence Community” was confident that the Russian government was behind the alleged hacking, the October memo was drafted by only two intelligence organizations – ODNI and DHS.
Since it came out only a month before the presidential election and was co-authored by only two intelligence agencies, the October memo looked like a clumsy attempt by the Obama White House to produce a document to boost Clinton’s reelection chances.  Its argumentation was very weak since it said the alleged hacking of Democratic emails was “consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts” but did not say there was any evidence of Russian involvement.
Friday’s declassified intelligence report on Russia hacking is even more suspicious.  As Congressman Hoekstra noted, this report was drafted and cleared by only three intelligence agencies, not 17.  DHS, which co-authored the October statement, added a brief tick to the new report, but did not clear it.  The Office of Director of National Intelligence, which co-authored the October memo, did not draft or clear Friday’s report, nor did other members of the U.S Intelligence Community with important equities in this issue such as DIA and the State Department’s Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR).
The declassified Russian report also lacks standard boilerplate language that it was coordinated within the U.S. Intelligence Community. This language usually reads: “This memorandum was prepared by the National Intelligence Council and was coordinated with the US Intelligence Community” or “this is an IC-coordinated assessment.”
Given how politically radioactive the issue of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election has become, why wasn’t the January 6 Russia report an intelligence community-coordinated assessment?  Why were several important intelligence agencies and their experts excluded?
It also is important, as Hoekstra indicated in his Fox interview, that intelligence community assessments on extremely controversial issues include dissenting views, such as those added by INR to the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD program.  A declassified version of this estimate was released in 2002 that included INR’s dissent.
The content of the declassified report was underwhelming. Although the report made serious accusations of Russian interference in the election, it did not back them up with evidence.  And, as Hoekstra also noted in his Fox News interview, the report made some dubious arguments that Russia succeeded in influencing the election using its RT cable channel, a Russian propaganda tool that is only taken seriously in the United States by the far left.
It’s also troubling that the unclassified report does not mention the extremely weak internet security of Clinton’s private email server, the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta.  This makes it impossible to determine whether the alleged hacking and leaking of Democratic emails was more Russia and other hostile actors exploiting this carelessness rather than a deliberate and robust Russian operation to interfere with the election.
This is not to say the new CIA/NSA/FBI report is without value.  I believe the classified report probably includes solid evidence on the intensive and broad-based cyber warfare efforts that Russia, China and other states have been conducting against the United States for the last eight years that President Obama has ignored.
I am encouraged that President-elect Trump responded to this report by stating that will take aggressive action against cyber warfare against the United States in the early days of his administration.
At the same time, I believe President-elect Trump and his team are justified in questioning the January 6 report as politically motivated.
I am concerned that the exclusion of key intelligence players and the lack of dissenting views give the appearance that the conclusions of this report were pre-cooked.
I also suspect the entire purpose of this report and its timing was to provide President Obama with a supposedly objective intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election that the president could release before he left office to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s election.
Adding to the Trump team’s concerns time intelligence agencies were are playing political games over possible Russian interference in the election is the fact that at the same time these agencies were refusing to brief Congress about their findings on this issue they were constantly being leaked to the news media.  The most recent press leaks, some by intelligence officials, occurred this week on the classified contents of the new Russia report before they were briefed to Mr. Trump.
The new intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election broke so radically with the way objective and authoritative intelligence community assessments are supposed to be produced that it appears to have been rigged to support a pre-ordained set of conclusions to undermine President-elect Trump.   I believe the October 2016 memo and related developments support this unfortunate conclusion.
It is vital that the Trump administration and U.S. intelligence agencies move beyond this situation by working together to forge new policies to protect our nation against the many serious threats it faces, including radical Islam, cyber warfare, nuclear proliferation, Russia, China and other threats.
Intelligence agencies were led astray by the Obama administration’s partisanship and national security incompetence.
I am confident that over time, the outstanding men and women Trump has named to top national security posts will ensure that America’s intelligence agencies have Trump’s confidence and produce the hard hitting and objective intelligence he will need to defend our nation.

In Trump's ongoing feud about Russia, he says those opposed to better relations 'fools'

A day after U.S. intelligence officials said Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump, the president-elect renewed his call for better Washington-Moscow relations and suggested naysayers are “fools” or “stupid people.”
The incoming Republican president, as he repeatedly did during his winning White House campaign, seemed eager Saturday to use Twitter to battle foes, critics and the Washington establishment, which appears to have no political desire to befriend former Cold War enemy Russia and now-Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump sent five tweets Saturday morning, including the final message over three separate tweets -- because of the limit to 140 characters each.
“Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only "stupid" people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We … have enough problems around the world without yet another one. When I am president, Russia will respect us far …
“more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!,” Trump tweeted.
Trump, during the 2016 White House race, roiled the U.S. intelligence community and others over suggestions that he admired Putin’s tough leadership, despite Russia in 2014 annexing neighboring Ukraine’s Crimea region and other strong-arm tactics.
The president-elect has also suggested that the United States’ stature as a world power has been diminished because of President Obama’s tentative foreign policy.
On Friday, a declassified U.S. intelligence report accused Putin of ordering a campaign to influence the U.S. election and hurt 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s candidacy -- findings made public after officials briefed Trump.
The report adds fresh fuel to the debate over Russia’s involvement in email hacking that affected Democratic groups during the 2016 race. Trump has publicly questioned the evidence linking Russia.
And hours before the briefing, Trump called it a “political witch hunt.”
However, Trump and the intelligence community seemed to find some common ground after the briefing. Both Trump and the report said the Russians did not target vote tallying.
Trump, in a statement, went a step further and said “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.”
The two other Trump tweets Saturday morning said: “Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched!"
The other was, “Only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is that the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed!”