Senators hold back 43 of Biden’s diplomatic nominees as crises roil the world
The Biden administration has 43 presidential candidates still awaiting confirmation in the Senate as Congress prepares for the holidays, a delay that endangers U.S. national security and foreign policy interests around the world, the department said of Foreign Affairs Friday.
Any nominee who is not confirmed before the Senate ends its session, which is expected next week, will have to be nominated by the White House next year, leading to further delays. Those awaiting confirmation include Kurt M. Campbell, whom President Biden is trying to appoint as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken’s deputy.
The blockade of diplomatic nominees has continued as many Republicans in Congress have tried to make support for Biden’s foreign policy priorities conditional on winning right-wing policy concessions. Some have shown a willingness to leave gaps in national security and diplomatic staffs even as the Biden administration faces wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
A single senator can stop a nomination, and several Republican senators have secured the nominees, similar to what Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, did so for months with at least 425 nominees for positions in the Pentagonbefore senators in his own party rebelled against him.
The State Department said it faced intense hostility among some Republican senators toward career foreign service officers.
“Since the beginning of this administration, the State Department has endured a relentless attack, especially on career Foreign Service candidates,” the department said in a statement. “Unprecedented, unrelated demands and often inaccurate perceptions have allowed adversaries like China and Russia to gain diplomatic ground.”
The agency’s rebuke echoed comments made by Mr. Blinken made in Julycalling on senators to end their blockade.
The State Department said Mr. Campbell’s appointment as deputy secretary was important to the department’s “critical work” to defend Ukraine, counter Chinese competition and “work for peace in the Middle East.” , a reference to the war between Israel and Gaza. Mr. Campbell, the White House’s top policy official on Asia, was appointed assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs by the Senate in the Obama administration.
Victoria J. Nuland, the department’s assistant secretary of state for political affairs, serves as the department’s acting deputy.
Other nominees include ambassadors for posts that the State Department called “critical to maintaining security, including Haiti, Somalia and Nigeria.” The list of unfilled posts also includes the counter-terrorism coordinator, the ambassador to the African Union, the deputy representative of the United Nations and the ambassador to UN agencies in Rome dealing with global food and agricultural issues.
Thomas Yazdgerdi, the president of the American Foreign Service Association, a labor union, urged the Senate to take action against the nominees.
“These are dedicated men and women who have dedicated their lives to diplomacy and who have proven themselves worthy of taking on the highest responsibilities,” he said.
Brett Bruen, a former US diplomat, accused Republicans of “playing politics with the leadership of our embassies in some of these places, at a time when we have so many global crises.”
Republican senators who have seized on ambassador nominees during Mr. Biden’s presidency include J.D. Vance of Ohio, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Earlier this year, Mr. Vance sent questionnaires to State Department nominees to determine whether they might be “radical” or too “woke” by his standards. told Politico in July.
Mr. Paul said in June that he would block Senate action against all State Department nominees until the Biden administration provided him with documents related to the origins of the coronavirus, which he said came from a Chinese laboratory leaked.
Mr. Cruz angered State Department officials early in the Biden administration by delaying numerous nominees, but has recently played a smaller role than Mr. Vance and Mr. Paul. The offices of Mr. Vance and Mr. Paul did not respond to requests for comment; a spokesman for Mr. Cruz said his office does not comment on whether there are any restrictions on nominees.
Twenty-seven nominees are stuck in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a number since 2022, the State Department said. The committee must schedule hearings or hold meetings to bring them to a vote.
Some U.S. officials said the committee’s top Republican member, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, did not agree to enough such meetings to keep the process going.
Mr. Risch’s office had no immediate comment. The committee’s chairman, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, also had no immediate comment.
There is still a chance that some nominees will be confirmed this year. The Senate confirmed Lisa Johnson as ambassador to Lebanon on Thursday evening.
One leading candidate on whom the Senate took relatively quick action was Jacob J. Lew, a former Treasury secretary in the Obama administration, whom Mr. Biden nominated on September 5 as ambassador to Israel. Mr. Lew was given a hearing in committee eleven days later. the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and confirmed by a close vote on October 31.