Panel vote on budget director delayed
The Latest on President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees (all times local):
10:50 a.m.
The top Democrat on a Senate panel responsible for advancing President Donald Trump’s pick to head the White House budget office says she needs time to examine the results of a routine FBI investigation before she can vote on Rep. Mick Mulvaney’s nomination.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill says she gained access to Mulvaney’s FBI file just a half-hour before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee vote Wednesday morning. Mulvaney is a Missouri Republican tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
The vote has been postponed by not rescheduled. Mulvaney faces a Budget panel vote on Thursday.
Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain is a critic of Mulvaney’s prior House votes on Pentagon spending, but he said after the hearing that he would have voted to advance Mulvaney.
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9:50 a.m.
A Senate committee has approved President Donald Trump’s picks for Health and Treasury secretaries after majority Republicans suspended the panel’s rules. The rule they suspended requires at least one Democrat to be present for votes. It was the latest escalation in partisan tensions in the new Congress.
The Senate Finance Committee approved Georgia GOP Rep. Tom Price to become Health secretary and financier Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary by a pair of 14-0 votes.
Democrats boycotted the meeting, demanding time to ask more questions about both nominees. Democrats say there were unresolved questions about both nominees’ financial backgrounds.
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7 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s nomination of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state is headed toward Senate confirmation after several Democrats crossed party lines to back the former Exxon Mobil CEO.
The vote on Tillerson, scheduled for Wednesday, comes as tension builds among congressional Republicans and Democrats over Trump’s executive order on immigrants and refugees. The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, said the order would be a litmus test for Trump’s remaining Cabinet choices, and that any who refuse to reject the “horrible” new policy should be opposed.
But Democrats lack the numbers in the Senate to block Tillerson from becoming the nation’s chief diplomat. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage and during a procedural vote Monday on the nomination, Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia cast their ballots for Tillerson. They’re unlikely to change their minds.
