CNN reports that the Trump transition team is forgoing FBI background checks for some of its appointments to Cabinet-level positions. According to people briefed on the plans, Trump and his allies believe that the process is sluggish and problematic, potentially slowing down the implementation of the president-elect’s agenda once he takes office.
FBI background checks have been a standard process for incoming administrations since the Eisenhower era, providing security clearances to ensure that no officials in America’s highest rungs of government are actually malicious actors working on behalf of foreign governments. The process of submitting to them has been a norm observed from one Presidential administration to the next, not a legally binding process. In the final analysis, President Donald Trump will be the ultimate authority on deciding who will make up his Cabinet, as well as whether or not they are worthy of being trusted with sensitive information. CNN’s sources indicate that Trump’s advisers began circulating a memo prior to the election urging the then-candidate to bypass the background check process performed by law enforcement in favor of hiring private researchers, a process that they claim would be faster.
Some of Trump’s choices for top positions already show signs of issues in the face of a background check from law enforcement. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s appointment to Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a long history of erratic actions and behaviors that could make him a security liability. According to another report from CNN released just after Trump’s election, a member of the incoming president’s team said that “if you dump a bear in Central Park and think you’re above the law, you don’t want to have to go through that gauntlet of political correctness.”
While Kennedy could face problems due to his high-risk lifestyle, other declared Trump appointees like Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk raise concerns in matters of foreign policy. Gabbard has been openly at odds with the United States’ support of Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022, stating that it was the consequence of “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.” Gabbard also repeated claims from Russian officials that the United States had “biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release and spread deadly pathogens.” U.S. officials denied their existence, and no evidence has since emerged to support the claim. For his part, Elon Musk, whom Trump tapped as a government efficiency czar to run a new department, recently met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, apparently to discuss U.S.-Iran relations. This would be a violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from engaging in unauthorized negotiations that could undermine the government’s position, and is punishable by up to three years in prison.
A source close to the Trump team stated that since the campaign was similarly “ill-prepared” when staffing the White House in 2017, the unorthodox methods of selecting and vetting Cabinet-level members of his administration is “par for the course.”
