Backlash as Trump skips FBI background checks — one nominee called 'likely Russian asset'

Ethics experts, legal experts, and current and former members of Congress are blasting Donald Trump and his transition team for skipping critical FBI background checks on at least some of the President-elect’s nominees to top posts in his upcoming administration, leading one member of Congress to warn she sees his top intelligence chief as a “likely” Russian asset.

“Skipping FBI background checks on nominees can be very dangerous,” warns former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter. “This happened once in the Bush Administration (with Bernie Kerik) and after that fiasco, never again.”

Kerik, a protégé of Rudy Giuliani, had been nominated to become U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, but was forced to withdraw after an allegation of immigration law violation. He later pleaded guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud, and served time in prison.

The Trump transition team “is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say,” CNN reports. “Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said.”

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“US officials are still waiting for the Trump transition team to submit a list of names, including those under consideration for Cabinet-level roles, to be formally vetted for security clearances,” CNN added, citing an unnamed source. “Trump’s team has, to date, resisted participating in the formal transition process, which includes signing memorandums of understanding and secrecy agreements typically considered a prerequisite for accessing classified material before the new administration assumes office.”

CNN also detailed the controversies surrounding two of Trump’s top, Cabinet-level nominees.

The now-former U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is Trump’s nominee to become Attorney General — the nation’s chief law enforcement official — “has been mired for years in Justice Department and House ethics investigations related to sex trafficking.,” CNN reported. “The Justice Department declined to charge Gaetz, and the House ethics probe, days away from being completed, was effectively ended when the Florida congressman resigned from his seat this week. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.”

On Friday, Speaker Johnson publicly declared the House Ethics Committee should quash the report on its investigation into Gaetz, drawing backlash.

Democrat turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard, also a former member of Congress, “has frequently appeared to take positions more favorable to foreign leaders widely considered not just American adversaries but, in some cases, brutal dictators, including the presidents of Syria and Russia, raising questions from allies and critics alike,” CNN added. “Gabbard notably met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2017, and said in 2019 that he was ‘not an enemy of the United States.'”

“In early 2022, she echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rationale for the country’s invasion of Ukraine, pinning the blame not on Moscow but on the Biden administration’s failure to acknowledge ‘Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO’ — a popular strain of thought in some right-wing circles.”

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On Friday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) blasted the choice of Gabbard, nominated to become the nation’s top intelligence officer, the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI oversees every U.S. Intelligence Agency and has access to all intel, not only American but intelligence shared within the Five Eyes community: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Tulsi Gabbard is someone who has met with war criminals, violated the Department of State’s guidance, and secretly clandestinely went to Syria and met with Assad, who gassed and attacked his own people with chemical weapons,” the Florida Democratic Congresswoman told MSNBC (video below). “She’s considered to be essentially by most, by most assessments, a Russian asset.”

Asked if she considers hares that belief, Wasserman Schultz replied: “Oh, yes, there’s no question, I consider her someone who is likely a Russian asset, who would be as the DNI, responsible for managing our entire intelligence community, hold all of our most significant intelligence information and secrets, and essentially would be a direct line to our enemies.”

Legal experts and current and former members of Congress are blasting the Trump team’s decision to not do FBI background checks.

“Eliminating the traditional FBI background checks for those who would flunk them – MAGA DEI,” Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock observed,

“You don’t have to do this if you think your nominees can pass a background clearance. You only do it if you know they can’t,” remarked professor of law and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance.

“For decades, Presidential nominees have been subject to FBI background checks to ensure that those individuals do not have ties foreign governments or criminal groups. If Gaetz and Gabbard have nothing to hide, they should do the background checks,” noted U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI).

“This is unacceptable. We cannot have our cabinet secretaries overseeing our most sensitive information go without background checks,” added U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). He said that Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin “should immediately request a background check for all nominees from the FBI while he is still Chair of the Judiciary Committee.”

Watch U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s remarks below or at this link.