Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the preparations, personnel decisions and policy deliberations of Donald Trump’s transition. POLITICO Pro subscribers receive a version of this newsletter first. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren | Email Lisa | Email Megan The Trump transition’s weeks-long dawdling on signing agreements with the White House and Justice Department — along with its rejection of federal email servers, office space and other resources — may be coming back to bite them. Republicans’ ambitions of confirming a swath of key Cabinet members by Inauguration Day are fading fast as senators in both parties complain that they haven’t yet seen the FBI background checks and financial disclosures they typically receive at least a week before holding a hearing on a nomination. The delays have already prompted the Senate Agriculture Committee to postpone its hearing for DONALD TRUMP’s pick to lead the USDA and may also push back hearings with nominees to lead the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and the CIA. “I’m anxious for us to get people who are qualified in place,” said Sen. JERRY MORAN (R-Kan.), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee who met with USDA nominee BROOKE ROLLINS on Wednesday. “But, I suppose, in order for people to ask questions about the things that are in the report, in their statements, the reports are important.” Trump’s team has long been skeptical of the federal bureaucracy it will soon inherit and considered bucking the usual ethics and transparency agreements that have been a hallmark of every transition in the modern era. They ultimately signed the federal memorandum required to kick off the background check process in early December, months later than his predecessors, and have still not yet submitted paperwork on the financial entanglements of all of its nominees — foot-dragging that is having a cascade of repercussions that could hamper the incoming administration’s ability to quickly implement its ambitious agenda. The Office of Government Ethics, which is responsible for ensuring federal officials sever financial ties with the industries they oversee, confirmed to West Wing Playbook that it has not yet finished processing and sending to the Senate the disclosures of any Trump nominees. A spokesperson for the agency said the delay was not due, as some have claimed, to the recent snowstorm in Washington, D.C., because they were “maximum teleworking” during that time, adding: “I would refer you to the transition team if you have questions about whether their nominees have submitted documents or started the process.” Trump-Vance transition spokesperson TAYLOR ROGERS said in a statement that “paperwork is being submitted quickly to ensure the confirmation process is smooth.” Rogers did not answer questions about how many nominees have already submitted their disclosures, when that happened, or how many have yet to do so. With multiple confirmation hearings expected next week without assurances that the candidates’ background checks and financial disclosures will be available by then, Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER accused the GOP of taking dangerous shortcuts. “It's hard not to wonder: What are the Republicans trying to hide about these nominees from the American people?” he said. A person familiar with the transition, granted anonymity to describe the situation, complained that “Senate Democrats are putting extra hurdles on the nominees” and “doing whatever they can to put up roadblocks.” Another factor likely further compounding the delays is the vast wealth of many of the Cabinet picks, speculated SCOTT AMEY, the general counsel for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, though he noted that much of the lag is likely due to the Trump transition’s delays. The complex financing of the billionaires Trump has selected means a longer processing time for their disclosures. It’s long been standard for incoming administrations to begin background checks and financial clearances of their Cabinet picks before making their names public, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having to withdraw a nominee should those processes turn up conflicts of interest or other potentially disqualifying information. Conducting those reviews post-nomination, and, potentially, post-confirmation hearing, is unprecedented. The Biden transition, for example, signed the memorandums to begin background checks and financial reviews of its nominees before the election, and began making that information available to Congress beginning on December 31, 2020 — well ahead of confirmation hearings held that following January. “Fastest to name is not actually the real metric for success,” said MAX STIER, the president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, of the Trump transition announcing its Cabinet picks at record speed in December. “They're a little bit like the airline pilot who takes off the runway without going through the full checklist. You can take off faster if you don’t go through the checklist, but it puts you at risk.” “I worry that the constitutional check that the Senate is supposed to provide will be diminished in some real way,” he added. Cabinet confirmations are just one area where the Trump transition’s delays are backfiring. The team also waited until late November to sign an ethics and information-sharing agreement with the White House — also typically signed before the election — that allowed them to start sending “landing teams” to federal agencies to coordinate a smooth handoff of power. The first tranche of those teams didn’t deploy until well into December, and some people currently serving on landing teams haven’t been formally hired yet for jobs they expected to get, per a person familiar with the transition granted anonymity to describe the situation. Senators who met with Trump on Capitol Hill this week said they were told the incoming president’s team is preparing around 100 executive orders on immigration, energy and other policy fronts for him to sign as soon as he takes office later this month, but the personnel lags could stall execution. One senior health official not authorized to speak on the record told West Wing Playbook that while the Trump transition’s landing team arrived in late December, they have yet to review the extensive materials that career staff and outgoing Biden appointees prepared for them on the challenges awaiting them in the first part of this year. “That starts to put regulatory deadlines at risk, and it affects things like the ability of the administration to participate in health care components of a reconciliation bill,” the official said. “I’m not sure how that would play out if there's been no real communication on any of it.” Grace Yarrow contributed reporting. MESSAGE US — Are you BROOKE ROLLINS? How do you feel about your nomination being delayed? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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