LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump has moved with lightning speed to name his choices for cabinet members and senior staff in his second term. Hundreds of those nominees will face confirmation hearings in a Senate that will now be controlled by Republicans, although it's not clear whether that will speed up a process that typically takes three times longer than it did during the Reagan years. Rob Kelner is a lawyer who has helped prepare dozens of presidential nominees for the confirmation process. He chairs the election and political law group at Covington & Burling, and he's on the line now. Good morning.
ROB KELNER: Good morning to you.
FADEL: So as briefly as you can, could you just walk us through what goes into vetting a nominee so they can get through the confirmation process without something on their record or in their history that hurts their chances?
KELNER: Sure. It's an elaborate and very detailed process that has really three stages. The first is a vetting to evaluate whether the individual basically is politically sound from the point of view of the president, whether Democrat or Republican. The second is an ethics and financial conflict of interest review to determine whether there are any required recusals or divestitures of stock. And the final stage is a background check and usually an FBI clearance process. That all leads up to the actual confirmation battle in the Senate.
FADEL: So it's pretty invasive, even that original vetting.
KELNER: It's very invasive, and all kinds of issues can surface about family members, about children, about an arrest that might have happened in the past. Very obscure issues that maybe an individual hasn't thought about in a long time can resurface. And as a result, you know, I advise every client to think really hard about whether they want to go through the process because it does surface embarrassing things that otherwise might never come to light. And that's something people have to really think hard about, not just for themselves, but actually really for their family members.
FADEL: And where are nominees' biggest exposures, typically?
KELNER: You know, there is a great variety of human weaknesses, and they all come to the fore in the vetting process. It could be anything from an extramarital affair to drug use, particularly recent drug use. It could be financial judgments that somebody has made. Gambling issues. There's almost an endless list of, you know, personal foibles that can come to light during the vetting process. But I would say, actually, the biggest issue people face typically is financial conflicts of interest. We all, you know, many people own stock. People have investments in companies, maybe they own their own company. And that can present a financial conflict of interest.
FADEL: And we've seen issues already come up with a couple of the nominees. We saw Matt Gaetz pull out. He was accused of sexual assaults. Pete Hegseth's also accused of sexual assault, which he was never charged for. The speed with which Trump has been naming his picks for the top slots and government has raised questions about how much vetting could have been done beforehand. Is there a risk in making appointments at this pace?
KELNER: Absolutely, although it's more a risk for the individual nominee than it is for the president, there's really been a complete flip in the process. It used to be that very detailed vetting was done before the president would appoint an individual or announce their appointment. And now, President Trump has really flipped that around so that he is announcing appointments before completing the full vetting process. And I understand why because that's his way of accelerating the process of filling positions in his administration. It's been a real problem in the last, you know, 10 years or so that many positions remain unfilled for a very long time, and that's been tough for both Democratic and Republican presidents. And so he's trying to speed that up by flipping the process around. And that may work pretty well for him, actually, but it can be challenging for the individual nominees sometimes.
FADEL: With the president and the majority of the Senate being from the same party, is this process going to be easier with the majority of the Senate maybe ready and willing to just get the appointments through as quick as possible?
KELNER: Well, one important thing to keep in mind is the vast majority of presidential appointments do not go to the Senate for confirmation. You know, there are 4,000 political positions. Relatively a small fraction require confirmation. So for most of the appointments, the vetting process is lengthy and elaborate, but it doesn't involve a Senate vote. For those that do require a Senate vote, you know, certainly, he has the upper hand, but I expect that we're going to see Republican senators exercising a fair amount of scrutiny to protect their institutional privileges. And the Democrats also matter. It can be difficult to be confirmed in the face of united Democratic opposition if a few Republican senators share the same concerns.
FADEL: Rob Kelner at the law firm Covington & Burling. Thank you for your time.
KELNER: Thank you.
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