[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 46 (Thursday, March 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1892-S1893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   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,

[[Page S1893]]

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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