Midwestern common sense on FBI background checks

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FBI background checks have been the gold standard for clearing presidential cabinet picks for decades and should retain that status.

That’s why three Upper Midwest senators merit commendation for stressing this high-caliber vetting’s importance for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations. The recent commonsense, bipartisan pushback from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D, and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., reflects well on the region and hopefully will be noted and acted upon by the incoming administration.

The Midwestern trio’s conscientious call comes on the heels of CNN’s recent report that Trump’s transition team is “bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs.” The main rationale, according to CNN’s sources: the FBI’s clearance can take time.

Of course, there’s another obvious downside: an exhaustive and thorough process can also turn up embarrassing information.

But that’s the whole point of clearing nominees through the federal government’s top law enforcement agency before officially nominating them. Not following the precedent can actually require far more subsequent time if a nominee gets derailed by questions about character or conflicts of interest.

As Matt Gaetz’s failed nomination for U.S. attorney general just illustrated, Republicans’ control of the U.S. Senate is no guarantee that questionable nominations will sail through that chamber. If the Trump team thinks the FBI process is too slow, consider the time wasted on the Gaetz nomination and the need to restart the process with another nominee.

On Sunday, Klobuchar laudably made a forceful case for continued FBI vetting on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday morning news show.

“We require these background checks of DEA agents — drug enforcement agents. We require them of first-time prosecutors for the federal government,” she said on the show. “Why wouldn’t we get these background checks for the most important jobs in the United States government?”

In a follow-up interview Monday, Klobuchar said that FBI clearance has been the standard since former President Dwight Eisenhower’s administration. She noted that some of these jobs involve national security, which underscores the need to ensure unquestioned integrity.

She also pointed out that there shouldn’t be a double standard that requires employees of these agencies to undergo FBI vetting but not people holding the top jobs: “You can’t say ‘Oh you have to have one but I don’t.’ ”

Klobuchar fortunately has company from several Republican senators. North Dakota’s Cramer and South Dakota’s Rounds are among those who have spoken out about FBI background checks’ importance.

Cramer has accurately noted that the FBI has wider access to information gathered by law enforcement than private companies. “If you wanted to supplement it with a private firm, I’d say OK. But the FBI does have access to information that probably a private firm wouldn’t have, even a really good savvy one,” Cramer said in a recent report in The Hill.

Rounds has said that “not having the FBI conduct background checks for high-level nominees by the time Trump formally appoints them next year ‘would come under scrutiny at the congressional level,’ " The Hill reported.

Two other Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, have also admirably stressed the importance of FBI background checks for incoming cabinet picks.

Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer during President George W. Bush’s administration, is also sounding the alarm about foregoing FBI background checks. Painter said the agency’s vetting remains the “gold standard” and that previous administrations have run into trouble when ignoring that.

That includes the president that Painter served. During Bush’s second term, the former president nominated Bernard Kerik to lead the Department of Homeland Security before the FBI had conducted a background check.

That nomination quickly collapsed after concerns surfaced about a nanny who may have been in the country illegally and alleged nonpayment of taxes related to the caregiver’s employment, according to a 2004 New York Times story. Kerik also faced “questions about his connections to a New Jersey company suspected of having ties to organized crime.”

In an interview, Painter stressed that private firms’ background searches aren’t a substitute for the FBI’s work.

The FBI likely has “an enormous head start” on private firms when it comes to information collection, “particularly on people who might be a national security risk,” Painter said Monday.

In addition, Painter pointed out another reason why the FBI’s work may be more accurate and thorough than an outside firm. “If you lie to the FBI, anybody who they ask questions of, lies to the FBI, that’s a criminal offense,” Painter said. “You lie to a private company, what can they get you for? Nothing.”

The collective fortitude of Klobuchar and her Senate colleagues is timely, and certainly appropriate. It’s also not without some risk because it could draw Trump’s ire. That could make them targets of mean-spirited presidential social media posts and create headwinds for legislation they carry. Republicans speaking out could also face a Trump-backed challenger in a future primary.

That these senators are asking tough questions anyway suggests that Congress’ upper chamber continues to take its historic “advise and consent” role seriously and that traditional guardrails on the executive branch’s power are holding. That’s a reassuring sign that the checks and balances designed by our nation’s forefathers are working as intended.