On the recordFebruary 9, 2017
my distinguished friend, Senator Perdue, is actually right. There is something unprecedented going on around here with these nominations, but it is not the Democratic effort to try to make sure that those nominees get a fair hearing and some light on them before they get into office. What is unprecedented around here with these nominees is, first of all, what a hash the Trump administration made of getting them ready. They were not ready to go. They were not prepared for the ethics reviews. They were dead in the water, and they have a lot of responsibility just in terms of the simple incompetence of getting a Cabinet ready to go. That is not the Senate's fault. The Senate should not roll over in its advice and consent role because an executive branch can't prepare nominees. Then you get behind the incompetence of the executive branch in preparing nominees and you start looking at the nominees. What else is unprecedented about them is the huge array of conflicts of interest they bring. We have never seen anything like this. We call it the ``swamp cabinet'' because it is, in fact, swampy with conflicts of interest. Many of these candidates have such massive financial complexities--because it is billionaire after billionaire after billionaire--that they have had to do all sorts of business contortions to try to get ready for their appointment. That also is not our fault.…





