WASHINGTON -- Democratic senators plan to aggressively target eight of President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees in the coming weeks and are pushing to stretch their confirmation votes into March -- an unprecedented break with Senate tradition.
"President-elect Trump is attempting to fill his rigged cabinet with nominees that would break key campaign promises and have made billions off the industries they'd be tasked with regulating," incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Sunday confirming his caucus's plans. "Any attempt by Republicans to have a series of rushed, truncated hearings before Inauguration Day and before the Congress and public have adequate information on all of them is something Democrats will vehemently resist. If Republicans think they can quickly jam through a whole slate of nominees without a fair hearing process, they're sorely mistaken."
As the minority party, Democrats likely lack the votes to deny any nominee outright, but they are determined to slow-walk Trump's picks unless they start disclosing the personal financial data they've withheld so far, according to senior aides.
Schumer has told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that Democrats will home in especially on Rex Tillerson, Trump's choice for secretary of state; Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Trump's choice for attorney general; Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget; and Betsy DeVos, set to serve as education secretary.
[TRUMP: Timeline of president-elect’s career + list of appointments so far]
There's also Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and oversee changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Democrats have said they will attack him for his support for privatizing Medicare. Andrew Puzder, a restaurant executive set to serve as labor secretary, will face scrutiny for his opposition to a proposed $15 minimum wage and to expanded overtime pay. Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner nominated to serve as treasury secretary, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, will also be the focus of Democratic attacks, aides said.
Absent from the Democratic hit list are retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, set to serve as defense secretary; South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whom Trump has nominated to serve as ambassador to the United Nations; and John Kelly, a former Marine general and Trump's selection to lead the Department of Homeland Security, signaling that all three should expect little trouble from Democrats.
Senate confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin next week, when the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold two days of hearings with Sessions. The Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to hold a one-day, two-part hearing with Tillerson.
But Schumer has told McConnell that he wants at least two days of hearings for each of these eight nominees, including at least one panel made up of witnesses who can speak to the pick's past record, aides said. At each hearing, members of the committee would get at least 10 minutes to ask questions, with no limits on multiple rounds of questions, if requested.
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Democrats also want hearings for each of the eight nominees to be held on separate weeks, with no more than two Cabinet picks sitting for a hearing in the same week.
Republicans noted that the New York senator went along in 2009 when the Senate unanimously confirmed seven of President Barack Obama's Cabinet nominees on Inauguration Day and five more later that week.
"It's curious that [Democrats] would object to treating the incoming president's nominees with the same courtesy and seriousness with which the Senate acted on President Obama's nominees," Antonia Ferrier, a McConnell spokesman, said in an email. "Our committees and chairmen are fully capable of reviewing the incoming Cabinet nominations with the same rules and procedures as the same committees did with President Obama's nominations."
VA candidate withdraws
One potential member of Trump's Cabinet has withdrawn his name from consideration.
Toby Cosgrove, chief of the Cleveland Clinic, had been considered the front-runner to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which would have put him in charge of the health care and benefits of more than 20 million U.S. veterans. The former military doctor last met with Trump on Wednesday.
A source said Trump's aides wanted Cosgrove for the job, but asked him privately whether he could make the commitment to tackle veterans' medical care, which they called one of Trump's top priorities. Cosgrove considered that and said he couldn't get out of his Cleveland Clinic commitment, the source said.
The Veterans Affairs post is one of the last remaining top jobs left for Trump to fill. Trump made no personnel announcements on New Year's Day, using his Twitter account instead to pledge "a wonderful and prosperous 2017 as we work together" and to retweet New Year's wishes from three of his children and from Reince Priebus, his choice for White House chief of staff.
Making news and issuing statements on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram will "absolutely" continue, despite earlier promises by Trump to cut back, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Sunday on ABC's This Week.
"You know what? The fact of the matter is that when he tweets, he gets results," Spicer said.
Spicer was asked on This Week about Trump's Twitter statement Dec. 22 that the U.S. "must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capacity until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." Trump was scolded for the tweet by foreign policy experts who argued that Trump was effectively restarting the nuclear arms race.
"You know, with all due respect, I think it freaks the mainstream media out that he has this following of over 45-plus million people that follow him on social media, that he can have a direct conversation," he said. "He doesn't have to have it funneled through the media."
Trump has 18.4 million followers on Twitter, 16.8 million on Facebook and 4.5 million on Instagram. He has posted on Twitter more than 34,000 times since joining the social media platform in 2009.
Trump and computers
For delicate subjects, however, the president-elect has said he advises staying away from computers.
"I have a boy who's 10 years old. He can do anything with a computer," Trump said Saturday outside Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Fla. "You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier."
Despite his frequent social media use, Trump doesn't write email or browse websites. As a candidate, Trump called for an immediate review of U.S. cyberdefenses and vulnerabilities, though he has not detailed specific steps or outlined any changes in the way he expects the White House to use technology for day-to-day work.
Bruce Schneier, a technology security expert, said Trump was right to question the safeguards that exist for protecting his own communications as president.
"If the Russian spies want to get at his data, no computer is probably safe," said Schneier, a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "Everything is vulnerable."
Trump's approach to technology contrasts with Obama, who tweets infrequently but carries a BlackBerry, emails with some friends and aides, and has received some of his daily security briefings on an Apple iPad. The 55-year-old president has also created the job of chief technology officer in the White House and views technology as key to making the federal government more efficient and responsive to the public.
However, online sign-ups for health insurance through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were hindered by technical issues, and National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden stole classified information that he leaked to journalists.
Trump, 70, said he rarely uses a computer. The president-elect said Saturday that he knew "things that other people don't know" about intelligence assessments of Russian interference in the presidential election, and that he wanted officials to seek the truth.
"If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong," he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. "So I want them to be sure. I think it's unfair if they don't know."
He added: "And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don't know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation."
When asked what he knew that others did not, Trump replied, "You'll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday."
Meanwhile, the State Department confirmed Sunday that the 35 Russian diplomats whom Obama ordered out of the country in response for the hacking have departed the United States along with their family members.
Obama expelled the diplomats, saying they were really spies, and ordered new sanctions on Russian spy agencies. Obama also shuttered two Russian compounds in Maryland and New York.
Information for this article was contributed by Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post; by Shannon Pettypiece, Jennifer Jacobs and Alan Levin of Bloomberg News; by Maggie Haberman of The New York Times; and by Julie Pace and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/02/2017