The big DC freakout over President-Elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks continues as we inch closer to Inauguration Day. An unnamed FBI official has sent a protected whistleblower report to the House Judiciary Committee this week.
The official says the bureau has politicized the vetting process for Trump’s Cabinet picks and is acting slowly to provide security clearances. Same stuff they pulled in 2016.
The difference is that this time, President Trump understands the rules of the game and his authority as head of the Executive branch.
The whistleblower is warning House Republicans of extreme political bias at the FBI’s security division (SecD). The official notes that the security clearance vetting process for Cabinet appointees has been “contaminated by the political agendas of [security division] officials and other executives in the FBI.”
Some Cabinet positions obviously require a security clearance, including anything related to intelligence, the military, and the attorney general. Under the “traditional” process, the FBI conducts a background check and then issues guidance to the president.
You can see where that provides lots of opportunity for the FBI to gum up the works and slow the process down, or simply tell the public in a mysterious fashion that an appointee doesn’t qualify for a security clearance.
This isn’t Trump’s first rodeo, however. This time around, he understands that just because something has been done in a “traditional” way by the Deep State doesn’t mean that he has to do that now. He’s got a private company vetting his Cabinet picks and doing background checks on them, circumventing the FBI entirely.
Because he knows better than to trust the FBI until he has firm control over it starting on January 20th.
Trump also knows that as the head of the Executive, he has plenary authority to grant a top-secret security clearance to anyone he wants. There’s not even a formal process that they need to go through. A president can be standing next to a random guy named Bill and say, “I grant Bill a top secret security clearance.”
That’s it. Bill can then view any top-secret documents or intelligence and there’s not a damn thing the FBI can do about it. Donald Trump is the boss and the FBI goons are his underlings. Period.
If the FBI refuses to give Matt Gaetz a security clearance to be the Attorney General (because they’re in terror of him actually reforming the bureau), so what? President Trump can grant Gaetz a security clearance on day one.
For that matter, we shouldn’t get worked up about the Senate confirmation hearings for any of Trump’s appointees either. If the RINOs in the Senate refuse to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, Pete Hegseth as SecDef, RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary, or Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Trump has other options and he’s already told the new Senate Majority Leader John Thune about it.
If the Senate doesn’t confirm a nominee, recess appointments are one way that a president can fill those slots. It’s constitutional. But Congress also passed a law called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Oops!
During the first 60 days of a new presidential administration, if any position is vacant, a president has the authority to appoint an “acting officer” to that position—without advice and consent of the Senate. If Thune is going to take control of the other RINOs in the Senate and push Trump’s nominees through, he can appoint those nominees as acting officers for the first 300 days of his administration.
All that Trump has to do then is wait for the Senate to gavel out and go on vacation. And we all know how much the Members of Congress love their vacations. It’s getting the bums to work for two weeks straight most of the time.
Once the Senate goes on recess, President Trump does a recess appointment and Matt Gaetz is officially the attorney general. It’s constitutional and perfectly legal, and there’s no way that the Senate can legally prevent the new administration from doing that unless Senate Leader Thune can convince a quorum in the Senate to stay in DC for 301 days.
The confirmation hearings will still be a big fight in the Senate and both parties will use that for fundraising purposes. “Donate now so we can stop Matt Gaetz! (And pay off the $20 million in debt that Kamala saddled us with on her way out the door!)”
The hearings might be fun to watch, but just remember that it’s all a moot point. President Trump is the chief executive and he gets to staff and run the Executive branch as he sees fit, up to and including rearranging or abolishing entire departments.
