Senate panel backs diplomatic nominees after Democratic delay

WASHINGTON — The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday advanced with bipartisan support three nominees for top diplomatic posts, including one for the State Department’s No. 2 position, even as some Democrats opposed them due to concerns about their qualifications and the Trump administration’s drastic changes to longtime U.S. diplomatic and foreign aid policies.

The nominations of Christopher Landau to be deputy secretary of State, Michael Rigas to be deputy secretary of State for management and resources and Matthew Whitaker to be ambassador to NATO are now ready for the Senate floor.

Landau received the most support with a 16-6 vote. The ambassador to Mexico during President Donald Trump’s first term won some Democratic support at his confirmation hearing last week when he said he believed with “every fiber of my body in the rule of law” and would work to execute the laws that Congress passes.

Rigas, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management and an acting deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget in the first Trump administration, received a 13-9 vote of approval.

At his confirmation hearing, Rigas frustrated some Democrats when he didn’t give a clear answer on whether the executive branch has the authority to ignore congressional directives on how to spend appropriated funds.

“I think if that’s what the law says [then] that’s what needs to happen,” Rigas finally said to Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., after several questions on the matter.

Whitaker, who was briefly the acting attorney general in late 2018, was approved in a 13-8 vote. He disappointed some Democrats at his confirmation hearing when he didn’t provide as robust of a defense of Ukraine as they were looking for.

Supporting Ukraine while simultaneously improving deterrence against a feared Russian attack on the Western military alliance’s eastern flank are NATO’s main focuses right now. Whitaker said it would be his priority to convince alliance members to increase their national defense spending levels to 5 percent of gross domestic product. The United States is well below that benchmark.

Democratic outrage delays committee votes

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who voted against Rigas and Whitaker, said he was worried the State Department may soon receive the same treatment as the U.S. Agency for International Development from Trump’s cost-cutting advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency.

“If the State Department goes through a similar across-the-board, ill-considered rush” to budget cuts that result in shuttered embassies and thousands of laid-off diplomats, then the harm to U.S. national interests will be lasting, Coons warned. “I am literally holding my breath for what comes next for the Department of State.”

Foggy Bottom officials have reportedly developed plans to shutter roughly a dozen diplomatic consulates mainly in Western Europe and may consolidate other diplomatic offices and programs. This comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle warn that China already has a larger global diplomatic footprint than the U.S.

Committee Democrats have been outraged by how swiftly the Trump administration and their former committee colleague Secretary of State Marco Rubio have moved in just a month to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and to freeze the vast majority of foreign aid spending.

That anger over USAID’s treatment prompted Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Murphy to exercise their committee member privileges to request to hold over the entire business agenda from an originally scheduled Tuesday markup.

“We should not confirm any additional nominees for State Department positions while Secretary Rubio continues to dismantle USAID, fire dedicated public servants, and unilaterally cancel contracts without consultation with Congress,” the three senators said in a Tuesday statement. “What was billed as a 90-day ‘good faith’ review has become a six-week unconstitutional purge of billions in foreign aid programs, completely shrouded in darkness.”

The senators said they opposed a “business as usual” approach until Rubio testifies before the committee and their concerns about a lack of congressional consultation and oversight are addressed.

Coons, who was filling in for ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., pressed Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, for when Rubio might appear before the committee.

Risch said Rubio would appear “at some point” but said there was “no time frame” yet for doing so.

Rubio announced earlier this week that he had canceled 83 percent of USAID’s programs and that roughly 1,000 remaining programs would be folded into the State Department.

While Risch and Shaheen were able to agree on rescheduling the votes for the three nominees to Wednesday, they decided to hold over the rest of the original Tuesday agenda, which included nine bills and resolutions, including measures related to the State Department’s treatment of Taiwan, democratic backsliding in Georgia and fentanyl trafficking.

Votes on those measures are likely during the Senate’s next work period.