Donald Trump's stake is still worth nearly $2 billion, but fears he might follow CEO Devin Nunes and sell stock while it's still worth something is weighing on sentiment. (Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) warned that if some of Donald Trump’s nominees make it to confirmation hearings, they will have to extensively explain themselves to Senate members.
Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee member said he expects “very, very serious questions” to be asked of Kash Patel, who Trump has nominated to lead the FBI.
Patel reportedly has an “enemies list” and the assumption is that he intends to use the FBI to settle his “grievances,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Patel hasn’t even officially been nominated, and already he’s sent a letter warning to sue a former Homeland Security adviser for expressing her opinion that he’s not qualified to run the FBI.
“This follows his threats against media & political opponents, showing how he might act if confirmed,” said Olivia Troye, who previously served in Trump’s administration.
Whitehouse said Democrats will likely want to know more about what Patel has “threatened to do to individual named people.” He predicted it’s “going to be pretty hard to explain.”
One of Trump’s other appointees, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat turned Republican from Hawaii, is being celebrated by Russian state media, the New York Times reported not long after she was named.
“If the concerns about Miss Gabbard’s connections with Syria, Russia and other places lead our key intelligence allies, particularly the so-called ‘five eyes,’ to withhold cooperation with our intelligence services because they don’t trust her not to leak their key assets to the Russians, that would be a very significant blow to national security,” said Whitehouse.
He pointed out that the Senate Intelligence Committee will look into her and he expects they’ll be sincere in their efforts. The committee requested Gabbard’s FBI file before the Thanksgiving break.
One detail leaked to The Hill, is that Gabbard’s foreign travel patterns landed her on a Transportation Security Administration list, which triggers additional security screening before flights.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he is “going to have to have a very compelling story for anybody who’s going to influence policy in Ukraine. At DNI, I don’t know if that’s her or not, but when I get into the nomination process, I have no intention of supporting anybody who equivocates on support for Ukraine.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) also said that with Matt Gaetz’s nomination gone, Gabbard has a mountain to climb.
He believes scrutiny will “shift to these national-security picks, and that will, I think, raise additional questions about fitness.”
