All of Trump’s nominees must face questioning in Senate confirmation hearings

It’s not a shock that President-elect Donald Trump wants to place his cabinet nominees into office without Senate confirmation hearings.

Otherwise, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), nominated to be attorney general, will have to explain why he is qualified to be the nation’s top law enforcement official when his legal experience consists of a brief stint as a junior lawyer in a small Florida law firm. Questions will come up about allegations that he engaged in sex trafficking involving a minor. For example: Mr. Gaetz, since you deny the allegations, why did you reportedly ask then-President Trump for a preemptive pardon?

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, nominated to be director of National Intelligence, will have to explain why she is qualified for that post when she has little to no national intelligence experience. She will be confronted with her statements echoing Russian disinformation and her support for national security leakers. Ms. Gabbard, why did you praise Edward Snowden for leaking massive amounts of top-secret documents?

Fox News personality and decorated veteran Pete Hegseth, nominated to be secretary of Defense, will have to admit that he has no experience running an organization larger than a small nonprofit, let alone one with 2 million employees, and that he believes that women are unfit for combat roles. Mr. Hegseth, how will you explain that view to the families of the 179 women who died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq?

A hearing will expose secretary of Health and Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s lack of medical or scientific credentials, his trafficking in conspiracy theories and his anti-vaccine beliefs. Mr. Kennedy, what credible scientific evidence do you have for suggesting that the COVID-19 virus was “targeted” at Caucasians and Blacks but not Jews and Chinese?

Trump has demanded that the Senate voluntarily recess to allow him to make appointments without the Senate’s “advice and consent,” as required by Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Section 2 contains a “recess” exception that allows the president, when the Senate is not in session, to make an appointment without Senate confirmation to assure continuity of government. But that exception was included because when the Constitution was drafted Senators had to make long trips on horseback to convene in Washington. It is irrelevant in the age of air travel.

For the Senate to go into recess specifically to avoid its constitutional duties would be a shameful first in American history. The House and Senate could also possibly manufacture a disagreement over when to adjourn, in which case the Constitution allows the president to force an adjournment, and then make recess appointments. Whether these ploys can be successfully challenged in the Supreme Court is unclear.

Republican senators, especially incoming Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) are in a no-win bind. If they do their constitutional “advice and consent” duty, hold hearings, and one or more Trump nominees are voted down, as seems likely, Trumpian wrath would descend on the senators who voted “no.” We now know that retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who incurred Trump’s anger in his first term, began receiving death threats and had to install bulletproof glass in his house after retiring.

On the other hand, if Republican senators vote to confirm manifestly unqualified nominees to avoid Trump’s anger, it looks awful. So, some kind of constitutional sleight of hand will be a tempting way out.

That would be an unforgivable abdication by Senate Republicans of an important constitutional check and balance. “Advice and consent” of the Senate, as Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 76, will “prevent the appointment of unfit characters” — an apt description of Trump’s nominees.

Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”