By Niels Lesniewski, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)
WASHINGTON — Congress returns Monday with a full plate for December’s legislative session, as well as plenty of announced nominees to begin vetting for the incoming Trump administration.
Leading the list from President-elect Donald Trump’s Thanksgiving week announcements was the choice of Kash Patel for FBI director, once there’s a vacancy.
Patel would replace the Trump-nominated and Senate-confirmed Christopher Wray, whose term does not end until 2027 and who would need to resign or be fired for a vacancy to exist.
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom Trump has picked to be the nation’s attorney general, is scheduled to be on Capitol Hill this week to meet with senators. Other Trump nominees-in-waiting, including former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, the Defense secretary designee; and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Trump’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, have already started making the rounds.
One of the more interesting debates to watch may be over the the case of Charles Kushner, the father of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump pardoned the elder Kushner in his first term and announced him last week as his choice for ambassador to France.
In addition to tax evasion-related crimes, Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to a charge of witness tampering in 2005. While the pardon may have ended the legal consequences, reviewing that record could be on the agenda of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
House members and senators will also be taking interest in Sunday’s announcement that President Joe Biden was granting a full pardon to his son Hunter Biden.
The younger Biden was convicted on federal gun charges and pleaded guilty on federal tax evasion charges. The president had stated in June that he would not pardon his son, but in a reversal Sunday evening, said he had determined that Republican lawmakers had helped conjure up unfair charges.
“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the courtroom — with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases,” Biden said in a statement. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.”
Making the rounds on the Sunday morning shows, Republican senators weighed on Patel’s nomination for FBI director.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., who served as ambassador to Japan in the first Trump administration, dismissed concerns about Patel’s qualifications for the job.
“I think Kash does have relevant experience, particularly when it comes to the mandate the American public has assigned of turning these agencies around that have become completely corrupted,” Hagerty said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Kash has pointed it out. He’s probably the best at uncovering what’s happened at the FBI, and I look forward to seeing him taking it apart.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said on ABC’s “This Week” that he hasn’t had any issues with Wray’s job performance.
“When we meet with him behind closed doors, I’ve had no objections to the way that he’s handled himself, and so I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now,” Rounds said.
Still, while Wray was Trump’s choice to replace James Comey at the FBI during his first term, Trump proposing a change is not particularly surprising, Rounds said, since “every president wants people that are loyal to themselves.”
Traditionally, the FBI director has been somewhat separated from partisan politics (even though some directors have been political in their own right).
Lame-duck business remains
More immediately, lawmakers have three weeks to fund the government and to try to keep the streak alive of clearing the annual defense authorization bill.
Given Trump’s influence within the House Republican Conference, much will depend on how much he decides he wants to start with a clean slate in 2025.
Senate Democrats are continuing to use their remaining time in the majority to confirm nominees whose terms in office will extend beyond Biden’s administration, both for federal judgeships and key administrative boards and commissions.
“Confirming the [National Labor Relations Board] nominees is one of our highest priorities, and we’re going to do everything we can do to get it done by the end of the year,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said on social media before Thanksgiving.
In a late-night deal before the Thanksgiving recess, Democrats and Republicans agreed on the process to confirm Biden’s district court nominees, while setting aside four circuit court nominees whom a Schumer spokesperson said lacked the requisite 50 votes needed for confirmation anyway.
That sets the stage for at least seven confirmation votes on judicial nominees as early as this week, with an additional six in the queue that were reported out of the Judiciary Committee just before the break.
John T. Bennett and Ryan Tarinelli contributed to this report.
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