Senate confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's cabinet picks should be delayed for further vetting, urge lawyers

The Senate confirmation hearings of key members of Donald Trump’s incoming administration must be delayed until full background checks have been completed, two former top White House lawyers have said.

Norman L Eisen, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush, and Richard W Painter, who held the post under Barack Obama, said going ahead with the hearings would be “absurd” and accused Mr Trump of creating a “serious problem”.

The US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has not yet had time to complete the financial disclosure reports and other checks that all candidates for senior government posts must undergo, in part because some of the candidates submitted their paperwork so late.

The delay in the completion of background checks has led to calls for the Senate’s formal confirmation hearings for some of Mr Trump’s nominees to be postponed until they have been properly vetted.

Mr Eisen and Mr Painter said this was a necessity. In an article for The Guardian, they wrote: “Short-changing the ethics review process in Congress jeopardizes nominees’ ability to do their jobs if confirmed.

“Completion of the ethics review process prior to Senate confirmation hearings ensures that all parties have a detailed understanding of the nominee’s commitments prior to taking office, offers full transparency to the Senate, and mitigates the opportunity for undue influence on the independent ethics review process.”

The need for financial disclosures is “more compelling than ever” because Mr Trump has nominated more billionaires than any other administration, they added.

Republican senators had previously demanded all vetting was completed before Barack Obama’s appointees were confirmed. In a letter sent in February 2009, Mitch McConnell, then the Senate minority leader and now its majority leader, wrote to Democrats demanding that “the Office of Government Ethics letter [be] complete and submitted to the committee in time for review and prior to a committee hearing”.

Mr Eisen and Mr Painter said the lack of checks on Mr Trump’s appointees was a reflection on the President-elect’s refusal to fully address fears about his own conflicts of interest.

They said: “The tone of ethical leadership and conduct is set at the top. The failure of Trump as president-elect to address the conflicts of interest and constitutional problems deriving from his own business interests is a serious problem. Senators, and all of us, cannot address these and other conflicts without that information.”

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has now announced it will it delay the confirmation hearing of Betsy DeVos, Mr Trump’s pick for Education Secretary.

The committee did not give a reason for the postponement other than to say it was “at the request of the Senate leadership to accommodate the Senate schedule”. The OGE has not yet completed its checks on Ms DeVos, after admitting it was overwhelmed with work vetting Mr Trump’s nominees.

Mr Eisen and Mr Painter had earlier said: “The notion that DeVos will be questioned before entering into an ethics agreement and disclosing it along with her financial holdings is absurd.”

Mr Trump’s Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus, had previously suggested there was “no reason” to delay the hearings.

He told Fox News: “They have to get moving. They have to move faster. They have all the information. These are people that have been highly successful in their lives. They need to move quicker."

“The fact is there’s no reason [to delay]. t’s the first week of January, they have all the details that they need, they have all the information that they need.

It’s no different from any other new administration coming in. The American people demand it. Change was voted for and change we will get.”