The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“NOMINATION OF GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S1892-S1893 on March 14, 2019.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
NOMINATION OF GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor to correct the record concerning statements the Senate majority leader made yesterday morning, in which he claimed that GEN John Abizaid's nomination to be Ambassador to Saudi Arabia ``is being held up.''
Allow me to ease the majority leader's concerns. Far from being
``held up,'' the Foreign Relations Committee, with my full support, has been extremely diligent in taking up General Abizaid's nomination; he appeared on the very first committee nominations hearing of the 116th Congress, and his nomination is advancing through the regular committee process expeditiously. I look forward to his approval by the committee and, hopefully, a speedy confirmation. As with all nominees, his final confirmation is under the control of the majority leader.
I am concerned that the majority leader has an inaccurate view of the nominations situation facing the Foreign Relations Committee. He stated yesterday that ``if we want to solve problems in the Middle East, through diplomacy, we'll need to confirm diplomats.'' Unfortunately, we cannot confirm diplomats that we do not have.
It took 23 months before the Trump administration bothered to nominate General Abizaid, leaving a gaping hole in our diplomatic posture to Saudi Arabia and the region. It is possible that this failure of leadership is the result of the President believing that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is capable of doing this job from the White House.
Regardless of the reason, Saudi Arabia is not an isolated example. It took even longer, over 2 years, before the Trump administration nominated a candidate to be U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. We are now 26 months into the Trump administration, and we still lack ambassadorial nominees to critical countries like Egypt, Pakistan, and our close ally, Jordan. This failure is a reckless abdication of a constitutional responsibility that is essential to projecting American power abroad. There is only one person responsible for this failure: President Trump; yet the majority leader appears to be curiously oblivious to that fact.
Let me be clear: When the committee has received nominations, we have worked with efficiency and diligence to vet and advance those nominations. I have devoted my time and staff resources to ensure this because of my strong belief that the State Department, USAID, and other foreign affairs agencies must be appropriately staffed. We cannot promote our foreign policy, protect American citizens, and advocate for American businesses without a robust diplomatic corps. In the 115th Congress, the committee reported 169 nominations. I reject any assertion that we have not done our part to ensure that the State Department is appropriately staffed.
All too often, however, the committee has received nominations late or not at all.
There is, unfortunately, there is another severe problem that we cannot ignore with regard to this administration's nominees. Delays in advancing Trump political nominees is largely due to poor vetting by this administration. When the President nominates and renominates individuals with restraining orders for threats of violence, who engaged in incidents that should, frankly, mean they never should have been nominated, or made material omissions, sometimes on a repeated basis, in their nomination materials, the Foreign Relations Committee must do our due diligence on behalf of the American people. Someone has to. My staff and I have had to spend significant additional time on vetting because of the White House's negligence or incompetence.
The United States and our allies continue to face tremendous challenges around the world. We must continue to lead on the international stage and work in collaboration with international partners to achieve our shared security goals, but to have our diplomats in place, they must be nominated in a timely fashion and vetted properly. Despite the majority leader's confusion on this issue, that is the real hold-up here.
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