Some of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s selections for cabinet positions are set to begin confirmation hearings this week, paving the way for them to serve in their roles around the start of his administration. But the hearings — the most public part of the confirmation process — are just one feature of a complicated vetting of those hoping to run federal agencies.
The Senate, which scrutinizes and approves candidates in a process described in the Constitution as “advice and consent,” typically holds hearings with national security and law enforcement nominees first because of the sensitivity and urgency of their work. Pam Bondi, Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general, and Pete Hegseth, his selection for defense secretary, are among more than a dozen candidates who will be questioned by lawmakers this week.
Here are the steps nominees and prospective nominees take after a president-elect chooses them for a post and before they can be confirmed.
Meetings with senators
Nominees for cabinet posts typically visit Capitol Hill well before their confirmation hearings, allowing lawmakers to get to know them informally and express support, or press them on potential policy disputes that may arise later in the confirmation process.
They work with advisers who help them navigate the Capitol complex and handle interactions with Senate committees and offices. They are typically swamped with briefing materials.
Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona who became the head of the Homeland Security Department under President Barack Obama, recalled the reading she did during her confirmation process.
“I remember looking at the door of the governor’s office one day, and a man is coming down with a dolly filled with 3-inch binders of briefing materials from D.H.S.,” she said. “And I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh God, what have I gotten myself into?’”
“I had to learn the difference between a ship and a boat,” Ms. Napolitano added.
Candidates often use the Capitol visits to present themselves as having momentum. Some of Mr. Trump’s more divisive picks for top positions, including Kash Patel, the potential F.B.I. director, have met in recent weeks with friendly Republican senators who afterward posted photos and statements affirming their support.
An ethics review and background check
Nominees must submit documents on their work and education backgrounds — a kind of supersize résumé that federal officials use to conduct investigations into a candidate’s work and personal life, including whether they used drugs or have a police record. Many high-level candidates submit a more expansive version of the document that explores potential foreign contacts or travel.
The F.B.I. uses those forms to complete background checks that lawmakers use to evaluate candidates, like one conducted on Mr. Hegseth that top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were briefed on last week ahead of Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing Tuesday.
(Mr. Trump’s transition team had considered bypassing the F.B.I. background checks by using private investigators but later signed an agreement with the Justice Department allowing those checks. Still, it was unclear whether all of Mr. Trump’s nominees were undergoing the process.)
Nominees must also complete an Office of Government Ethics document known as OGE Form 278, which examines possible conflicts of interest a candidate might have in running an agency. Many of those forms have been published in recent days, including for Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of state.
The questionnaire asks about a candidate’s financial background, such as assets held, forms of income and gifts received. Potential conflicts do not disqualify someone. But nominees do have to resolve them in some way in a formal ethics agreement with the federal government. Corporate executives appointed to top positions, for example, are regularly required to divest from stock.
“That ethics agreement is often one of the most complex and important parts of the entire nominee screening process,” said Norman Eisen, who was an ethics official in the Obama administration. “That is the place where, for example, former employers or clients or current financial interests are identified, and arrangements are made to recuse the nominee from working on relevant particular matters or other issues.”
Scott Bessent, Mr. Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary who has made millions as an investor and hedge fund manager, on Saturday released his plan to divest from dozens of funds, trusts and investments.
Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary under President Barack Obama, said that she adjusted her stock portfolio so that there was no risk of it conflicting with the work of the Food and Drug Administration, in particular, since she would oversee that agency.
“There was extensive, forensic audit of our finances,” she said, referring to vetting by the Senate Finance Committee, one of the panels that checks the background of a health and human services secretary nominee. “You’re getting policy briefings, and questions about 10 years ago when you sold your house: ‘What did you do about this?’”
Meeting with Senate staff and confirmation hearings
Only in the middle of the 20th century did Senate committees begin requiring nominees to meet with them in person.
Candidates are vetted by committees that oversee the agencies they hope to lead. Ms. Bondi, the president-elect’s pick for attorney general, is being evaluated by the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example.
Early on, committees may ask candidates to provide disclosure forms for staff members to review, or ask them to meet in person with staff members. Candidates may be questioned about their policy positions, as they might be during official confirmation hearings.
John Ratcliffe, whom Mr. Trump selected to run the C.I.A., provided background documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee staff ahead of his hearing this week.
A candidate’s interactions with committees culminate in hearings, the most dramatic and visible part of the confirmation process. In a public hearing, nominees first take an oath to speak truthfully, then deliver opening statements to the committee that usually summarize their priorities and experience related to the jobs they hope to take. Members of the committees from both parties have time-limited slots to ask nominees questions.
Some nominees will face multiple hearings because of their potential job’s broad portfolio. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for example, Mr. Trump’s choice for health secretary, is expected to have hearings in both the Senate health committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Senators may also request further information after a hearing in what are known as questions for the record, or Q.F.R.s.
The committee and Senate vote
After a confirmation hearing, a committee votes on whether to recommend a candidate to the full Senate, formally teeing up a final confirmation vote. Lawmakers can then debate a nominee on the Senate floor before the ultimate vote is taken. Nominees need a majority of senators to be confirmed.
Senator John Tower, a Texas Republican, was the last Cabinet nominee to be voted down by the Senate. Mr. Tower was chosen by President George H.W. Bush to be defense secretary, but was rejected in part over accusations of excessive drinking.
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
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