Obama Appointees Face Extensive Vetting

Washington Post: An Army Of Lawyers Are Examining Potential Picks With Unprecedented Scrutiny

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Philip Rucker.

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There was a time when smoking marijuana during college threatened your hopes of landing a top presidential appointment. Then came the nanny questions: Are your domestic workers legal? Did you pay their employment taxes?

Now, as President-elect Barack Obama assembles his administration, an army of lawyers volunteering on his transition team are vetting his potential picks with unprecedented scrutiny of their personal, financial and professional backgrounds.

Embarrassing e-mails, text messages, diary entries and Facebook profiles? Gifts worth more than $50, other than those from relatives and long-standing friends? Family members with connections to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG or any other company receiving a federal bailout?

Obama is conducting the vetting process much the way he managed his campaign: methodically, thoroughly and on a prodigious scale. He did not wait until he won the election to vet his favored picks. Soon after he clinched the Democratic nomination, lawyers quietly prepared dossiers of about 150 contenders for senior positions -- often without the candidates themselves knowing -- said a senior Obama transition adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"You start with public sources: You go on Google, Nexis and other public record databases," the adviser said.

Now Obama is asking contenders to complete a far-reaching questionnaire and furnish detailed personal and financial records dating back a decade.

"Now you're going to the next level and really trying to understand if there are any potential issues in nominating and confirming this person for the job," the adviser said. "The real purpose of vetting is to understand the person's ability to perform the job and be confirmed for the position. We also want to avoid surprises."

The vetting process extends beyond a 63-item questionnaire Obama is requiring of top candidates. For the roughly 800 executive posts that require Senate confirmation, nominees must undergo an FBI background check and file records with the Office of Government Ethics.

For the president-elect, vetting candidates and selecting nominees is his first test of leadership, said Dina Habib Powell, a former director of presidential personnel in the Bush White House.

"The decisions that [Obama] makes in appointing individuals to serve in these critical roles will have an impact on his entire presidency," Powell said.

Obama's scrutiny is so intense that some top candidates hired personal attorneys in the spring and summer to "pre-vet" them in advance of submitting information to Obama's team. The lawyers scoured tax returns for any errors or details that could jeopardize their chances, said a Washington lawyer who is involved in Obama's vetting process and played a similar role for President Bill Clinton's transition.

"Sometimes they will have us go through their tax return and say, 'I did X, Y and Z, my accountant recommended it, but do you think that was kosher? Do you think that would raise red flags?' " said the lawyer, who has pre-vetted some clients and agreed to describe the process only if he and his clients would not be identified.

"It has become a nightmare," E. Pendleton James, who managed personnel for President Ronald Reagan's transition, said of the questionnaire. "I don't know how anybody with some self-esteem can subject themselves to all of these questionnaires. . . . Every candidate who fills out the form is deathly afraid of making a mistake. If he or she does make an innocent mistake, that can be used as a political weapon in the confirmation process to question your integrity."

Inquiries into candidates' backgrounds grow deeper as each administration's scandals add new thresholds. In the 1980s, a history of marijuana use killed some nominations. During the past decade, scandals about domestic workers clouded transitions. Clinton's nominee for attorney general, Zoe Baird, withdrew from consideration when it became public that she and her husband had hired a Peruvian couple living in the country illegally as a babysitter and chauffeur. Eight years later, Bush's nominee for secretary of labor, Linda Chavez, withdrew after she was found to have provided haven to an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.

Obama's questionnaire has four questions about domestic workers.

"If you looked at the questionnaires that they used back in 1976 and 1980, they would be very tiny compared to this questionnaire," said Michael S. Berman, a lawyer and lobbyist who worked on the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton transitions. "Over time, in each transition, whether Democratic or Republican, some new issue will arise, some question that hasn't been asked before that causes consternation, so you simply add that in."

Personal information obtained through the vetting process does not automatically disqualify a candidate from a political appointment, but the transition team uses the information to judge a person's fitness for the office and likelihood of being confirmed.

The questionnaire does not directly ask about drug use -- which Obama himself admitted to in his 1995 memoir -- but it includes a question seeking any information that would be "a possible source of embarrassment."

Some officials who vetted nominees for previous administrations said Obama's standards are so onerous he risks turning away the best candidates.

"It takes major talent to do this work," said a senior Pentagon official who has worked on transitions for four Republican presidents. "With two wars going on and several major acquisition programs, they need the best people they can find in the Untied States today, and you've got to be careful not to be so stringent that you eliminate those people. If you get too difficult, people will say, 'No, thank you.' "

For vetters, there is a mantra: "Vetters never think that no one else will find something out," the Obama adviser said. "We know that if we found it, someone else will find it."

Tom C. Korologos, a D.C. lobbyist and former ambassador to Belgium, has vetted and prepared more than 300 nominees for confirmation hearings, beginning during President Richard M. Nixon's transition. He begins each session by asking the candidate a simple question:

"What is there in your background that you have done that's going to come up in the hearing and embarrass the president and embarrass you? I'm not telling you to tell me what it is. What I'm telling you is to get the answer in your head, because it's going to come up."

When Korologos vetted Nelson Rockefeller before his selection as President Gerald R. Ford's vice president, Rockefeller was reluctant to make his financial history public.

"'I've got something to worry about,'" Korologos recalled Rockefeller telling him.

"His concern was that when it became public, he wasn't going to be as rich as everybody thought he was," Korologos said. "He was going to be embarrassed among his peers that he didn't have all the billions people thought."

To prepare Donald H. Rumsfeld for his confirmation hearing to become defense secretary, Korologos held a "murder board."

"I'd ask the rottenest questions in the world," Korologos said. "My goal was to have him at the end say, 'You [expletive], you were much harder on me than the committee was.'"

[assemblyofso]

Either this process is a sham or he is putting these people through background checks he probably could not pass himself.

[boandco]

Obamas vetting procedure cant be that good, Hillary Clinton got through. It is all just a publicity stunt.

[demsucks]

Where is the change Obama promised???????

[cheteunice]

DJ_IL, For argument''s sake I''ll your point. Why did he leave Rev. Wright''s ministry adter 9/11?

[cheteunice]

DJ_IL, I only know that I would had the courage and the brains to leave the church when I first knew what was coming from the pastor''s lips!

[cheteunice]

DJ_IL, He only disavowed Wright when it became clear that the Wright issue wasn''t going away. And if he didn''t agree, why did he stay 20 years?

[cheteunice]

LloydBest1, ''disregard for anything even remotely resembling honor, truth, decency or fair play.''

What do you think that Obama and Biden was doing the whole campaign?

[cheteunice]

DJ_IL, Obama has never explained his long association with the Rev, Wright to my satisfaction--so too bad for you. Isn''t Wright moving in with Obama?

[cheteunice]

DJ_IL, Obviously you aren''t an adult--or else you never learned to play nice!

[cheteunice]

Are they vetting these people the way Obama vetted the Rev. Wright for 20 years?

[tangouniforn]

Armies of lawyers are working diligently. Why am I not assured?

Posted by Inketolstoy
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Who is better at vetting than lawyers? Some wingnut talk show host?

[inketolstoy]

Armies of lawyers are working diligently. Why am I not assured?

[melissapat]

Let''s get back on the subject of Obama vetting.

During his campaign he said he would not have anyone in his administration that was involved with any special interest groups or worked previously for any one or any company that did direct business that would create a conflict of interest.

So now he is doing extensive background checks on everyone who wants to work in his administration. Hillary Clinton, for example, is being heavily vetted to make sure her husband did not have dealings with companies (through his AIDS charity) that may pose a conflict of interest.

Yes folks. The President Elect Barack Obama is doing what he promised in his campaign!!!!! Keeping a promise! Wow what a great idea.

[ericv2644]

Obama''s choice of AG Mr.Holder is a great choice and he will bring with him integrity. Something that has been lacking in the Justice Department since the Bush Administration took over.

[lloydbest1]

"oldguy4truth: It is clear that Sarah is a woman of CHARACTER, something that Obama sorely lacks. All the digging turned up NO dirt on her. EVERYTHING was proven false. She is a woman...." Posted by sickofleft at 01:51 PM : Nov 18, 2008

You know, I believed that myself even though she represented a faction of a disgraced party that I could not stand. She SEEMED to exhibit some shreds of decency that were all too rare among the neo-con Mafia.
Then came the campaign. NEVER in my life of nearly 60 years have I ever seen such a criminal disregard for anything even remotely resembling honor, truth, decency or fair play. She maliciously (possibly feloniously) used bald faced falsehoods even she knew were lies to whip up crowds into almost psychotic anti-Obama lather. I have seen the rallies - even attended one ''cause I couldn''t believe the nastiness was really real!! It was awful.
As far as not being vetted himself...No man in the history of politics has been as thoroughly examined as has Obama. The media, the international community, the financial world - all of ''em had the O-man under the scope for three solid months. And what did they find? Wright? A noisy but mostly harmless man. Ayers? May have been a left wing loony once; Not even centerline, now. And as far as his supposedly commie associates...? Not a one of them is any more ominous than a hopeful shade of pink.

[bobgee_1999]

This is comforting. It leads one to think that Obama is a pleasant, professional guy up front, and underneath a barracuda. Which is just what we want. He knows that (just like B. Clinton) the attacks on him have begun (before he has even taken office), and will continue almost a decade later (just like Clinton) in hopes of destroying his legacy and any progress made during his administration. This is done systematically on a daily basis by Faux News & Hate Radio. Obama seems to be preparing himself for it.

[spinproof]

We voted for change Obama not more treasonous, unconstitutional, and impeachable offenses liked protects the current administration''s war criminals.

You better had find an AG with more balls than you have because You''''re leaving us lawful citizens with nothing more than the prospect of finding or own version of Justice for these criminals.

Posted by impeach___w at 02:40 PM : Nov 18, 2008

Eric Holder is a former Deputy Attorney General, knows his way around the Justice Department and will bring Justice to those who can''t wait to meet her.

[melissapat]

sickofleft

Still on the %u201CI love Palin%u201D thing. Wow. Get over it or get a brain. She is nothing what you said. She is unqualified, lacks discipline, and has zero Federal Government knowledge. Can you imagine her as President meeting with foreign leaders? I cringe at the thought. Thanks to Bush, America has a bad enough reputation. With Plain, it would have been worst. Plain was one of the reasons McCain lost. The common sense republicans could not vote with her on the ticket (Colin Powell, and I know a few).

She needs to be tagged and put back in the wild.

[melissapat]

That''s it Olivia4441...defend yourself by asking someone to defend themselves first. Why did you go to the American Thinker and post words other people have written and posted them on this site?

Even so I will answer your question with MY thoughts on Obama.

1) I,from day on, was against the war in Iraq. Obama was too when he was still a State Senator in 2002.

2) He has not been caught in a lie.

3) He thinks before he reacts. He is a common sense, analytical politician. He is not an abstract politician like Bush. I assume you do not know what that means so I will tell you. Common sense, analytical politicians are people who try to match means with ends and who calculate gains and risks, they take history and and social facts into account. Abstract politicians do not do any of these. Iraq War anyone?

4) He understands the division in this country (look at us on this website)and where it comes from.

5) He has integrity. During the campaign did he mention Palin''s husband palling around with the Anti-American Alaskan Seperatists group? No. Did he mention Palin''s right winged views on *** education and how it failed with her own daughter. No. Did Obama mention that McCain had told his captures when he was in Vietman more than his name, rank, and serial number. No.

I can go on and on

Obama won due to all these things plus more. This is actually the first time I voted for someone rather than aginst someone.

[earache4]

EVERYTHING was proven false.
Posted by sickofleft at 01:51 PM

You mean like the Alaskan legislative investigation that found her guilty of abuse of power? Or do you mean her shopping for the $15,000 wardrobe to nowhere? Or were you talking about her $400,000,000 in state pork money?