Senate Republicans plan to move rapidly to confirm President-elect Trump’s cabinet, and will vote on many of his nominees in an Inauguration Day session.
“In the past, we have been able to confirm a number of the incoming president’s cabinet appointments on Day 1 and we hope on Jan. 20, even though there is a lot going on that day, we hope to be able to confirm a number of the president’s selections for the Cabinet so he can get started,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
McConnell said he has instructed committee chairmen to begin holding hearings on the nominees, a group that now appears to include McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao. Trump is expected to announce later today that he has selected Chao to serve as transportation secretary. Chao held the job of labor secretary under President George W. Bush.
“I think it’s an outstanding choice,” McConnell said Tuesday when asked about his wife’s appointment.
Senators will also vote on whether to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to serve as the next attorney general. Sessions met Tuesday with Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
Democrats are demanding the Senate hold a days-long confirmation inquiry with Sessions because Sessions, Alabama’s former attorney general, was rejected for a position on the federal bench decades ago after critics claimed he made racially insensitive remarks.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Tuesday it won’t take long to vet Sessions, who has served in the Senate since 1997.
Republicans are eager to install a GOP pick at the helm of the Department of Justice, which they believe has become deeply politicized under the Obama administration.
“Those of us who have worked with Jeff Sessions know Jeff Sessions and that he is a good an honorable man who will restore the reputation of the Justice Department to one that respects the rule of law, as opposed to the political den of inequity that has been involved there for the last eight years,” Cornyn said.
“We are going to do it in an orderly process. I anticipate we’ll have those hearings early in January. I think they’ll run out of questions after the first couple of hours.”
Senate Republicans will be following in the footsteps of Democrats, who on Inauguration Day in 2009 confirmed seven nominees chosen by the newly sworn-in President Obama.
