Summary
Donald Trump’s transition team has bypassed standard FBI background checks for key cabinet nominees, relying instead on private investigators, as reported by CNN.
This breaks decades-old norms meant to vet candidates for criminal history and conflicts of interest.
Controversial appointees include Matt Gaetz (attorney general), Tulsi Gabbard (director of national intelligence), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (health secretary), all facing scrutiny for past investigations, pro-Russian views, or personal admissions.
Critics argue Trump seeks to undermine traditional vetting, with potential security risks tied to bypassing these checks.
Things are going to be FAR worse than anyone has imagined thus far.
I just know it.
Please don’t tell my intrusive thoughts that
to his supporters, this just looks like someone who gets things done. and they probably don’t trust the FBI
Bypassed standard FBI background checks … to vet candidates for criminal history and conflicts of interest.
Those are features, not bugs now. They know exactly who they picked.
Exactly, they don’t need the FBI to discover the things they already know about them. I would even say, those things are the reason why they were picked.
Just like Trump limited what the FBI could look at for Kavanaugh, and nobody did anything about that either. He also over-ruled intelligence telling him Flynn was a foreign agent and cleared Kushner also. And the list goes on, but it didn’t matter the first time around, and the assholes that voted him back in are cool with it.
How much corruption can we take before he’s even installed? For real. This is way fucken nuttier than last time. It seems so malicious.
It seems so malicious.
I guess he was being honest about all that revenge talk, eh? I mean, it is actively and onerously malicious, but just like last time, everyone’s just gonna let them steamroll them, because the federal government has long had hesitance to hold figures like presidents, senators, and supreme court justices to account, and this is just an extension of that.
I mean, we didn’t prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes. Hillary Clinton was proud of her friendship with Henry Kissinger. Kamala Harris was proud of her endorsement by Dick Cheney.
“It’s a big club and we ain’t in it,” but Trump and co. don’t feel the need to put up the facade anymore.
the federal government has long had hesitance to hold figures like presidents, senators, and supreme court justices to account, and this is just an extension of that.
Because if they start holding others in similar offices to account, they might have to hold themselves as well, and that ain’t happening.
“It’s a big club and we ain’t in it,” but Trump and co. don’t feel the need to put up the facade anymore.
Bingo. Instead of “hiring” (paying off) politicians, they’re just doing it themselves. They’ve lost any and all care about keeping up appearances. After all, what are we going to do? Sue them?
He called Putin for a reason
The 4 years of Trumpsanity isn’t starting in January, it’s starting right now. For fucks sake, I’m not ready yet. I need to start stockpiling popcorn and booze. Except this time I’ll probably need less popcorn and more booze because I don’t think it’s going to be as stupid funny as last time. It’s already not funny, it’s been nosediving into “could it get any worse?” and so far the answer has been “Yes!”.
It annoys me a lot when people I know say “Trump is funny”. Not really… he’s a whiny, conceited asshole. He might be somewhat amusing if he wasn’t the President. As it is, this isn’t funny at all.
We will take whatever he gives. The US voters approved him. They want this. They chose this, and everything that comes from it.
Thats not true. There are at least 71 million people here who voted against it. Thats a lot of people.
He won the popular vote, and the electoral college. Majority rules. (Unfortunately)
Also people who didn’t vote at all, are at minimum fine with Trump and not against him.
…Assuming he actually did, and didn’t just commit all the electoral fraud he kept talking about
This. There is no authority above the authoritarian. His word is law now. Whatever Our Glorious Cheeto wishes is now US doctrine.
Void help us all.
I tried. I can’t do anything.
Did you check your pockets for a time machine? I bet you left it there and could make a quick pop back to the 90s and correct the timeline.
This is why we’re supposed to have separation of powers. Any competent senate, even if the same party would insist in this before confirming. A senate full of sycophants on the other hand ….
He got more votes than he ever did in the previous elections, and won the popular vote for the first time. God damn.
Rigged!!! /s
I’m not even sure what world be the worse outcome, more fraud and cheating from Trump or that so many people genuinely voted for him.
Sadly my gut tells me that real votes are the worse situation, and also the true one.
Yup. There will be lots of opportunities to say “well, I hope you didn’t vote for trump if you wanted ______”
Healthcare, retirement, any kind of social service, etc etc.
This all highlights how many loopholes and deficiencies there are in a system that prides itself so much on checks and balances.
No system of rules or laws can fully account for people acting in bad faith.
I think the founding fathers counted on social shame to limit bad faith actors in government. A dishonorable person used to become a social pariah and might even get killed in a duel back in the 18th century. People wouldn’t associate with them, sign a contract with them, or lend them money. But now?
Now they publish it on TikTok and collect likes and followers.
You obliquely touched on a pet theory of mine. We s a society have for decades now rallied against public shaming and bullying and that kind of thing, but I wonder if we’ve gone too far with it —antisocial behaviours are left to run unchecked, whereas 100 years ago these people would have been mercilessly mocked to their face every day. Without the fear of that public mockery and ridicule, we get this.
Trying to protect neurodivergent people unfortunately shelters bad behavior as well as benign. Yes, the antisocial guy trying to start fights and hurt animals would’ve been driven out of society, but so would the harmless kid who needs things to be arranged by the last letter of its name or something. I’ve got some idiosyncrasies that make certain aspects of “fitting in” require more effort than most, and I definitely felt the difference in attitude towards how I struggled as I got older. Another hard to control factor is that malicious people can game those same attitudes that help people who simply can’t understand why they are different.
Yes, that’s the catch. Maybe we can encourage ridicule directed only at “society-level” behaviours and make it clear that individual quirks are off-limits.
I touched on one of my pet theories as well; the Constitution was written assuming dueling would be a safety valve. Holding office was originally limited to land-holding men, so the high class. They were mostly the only ones that did dueling back then. It was technically illegal, but it was a law for the common folks. At the time dueling was often done with pistols, which was paradoxically safer than swords. A duel with a sword always ended with blood. A pistol duel could end with both parties missing (often intentionally) and be considered a finished matter. Both parties would agree to a compromise that preserved the honor of each.
It sounds insane, but I suggest bringing back dueling. Just for federal elected officials though. Just the threat of a duel would make the assholes who take office just to enrich themselves run for the hills. They would never actually put their own ass on the line. You would actually have to believe in something enough to die for it to take office.
Our social circles are too big to do it reliably.
Apparently the balance was supposed to be one person with good faith checking one without. Now we see what happens when every dumbass stands on the corrupt side of the balance.
Potential security risks?
Jfc these idiots.
he’d just overrule anyway like he did jared and a couple dozen others before.
I’ve needed FBI background checks for nearly every job I’ve ever had. If I need a background check to work in an elementary school, why don’t these people need it to handle our nation’s secrets?
don’t worry, DOGE will abolish the FBI, you’ll be able to work wherever you want!
As long as it’s a christian elementary school.
What could go wrong?!
Trump should just come clean and admit that he plans to betray Ukraine.
He already said as much before the election and people still voted him in. He also stated he’s cool with leveling Gaza, and called Netanyahu and told him no deal until after the election, that way he can give Israel carte blanche and claim the credit for “ending the war” (ignoring the complete genocide of the Palestinians).
The Banana Republicans up to a good start.
Moves to cut out the FBI appear to be in line with a pre-election memo drafted by his legal advisers and fits with Trump’s enduring suspicion that the agency is part of what, without evidence, he believes to be a “deep state” machine within the federal government bent on undermining him.
Trump administration does something obviously illegal and unethical
FBI: “Hey, that’s illegal, you can’t do that.”
Trump: “Look at this deep state organization trying to prevent me from doing my job”
The Senate will allow this or not.
The senate:
🔘 Will allow this
⚪️ Will not
There are Republicans already encouraging the Senate to meet the 10-day recess necessary to allow Trump to circumvent the Senate with the Recess Appointments Clause. Which is Republicans using a rule in bad faith that was supposed to protect the process from the Senate using an excessive recess to prevent/delay a President from getting their picks vetted.
Gabbard is the biggest threat here, in my view.
You couldn’t dream of putting a spy in a better position than the DNI whose position is literally to oversee all intelligence agency silos.
Russia will know literally everything.
She is literally in a cult.
People need to know that and they don’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_Identity_Foundation
Not to defend those nutjobs but ‘religion’ (aka cults that reached critical mass) are far more dangerous, whether Catholicism or mainstream US Protestantism.
Not at all true. These are cultists who would happily march queer people into gas chambers and don’t make a secret about it.
This is a Nazi cult. This is super fucking dangerous.
Dude there are certainly more Americans that would happily march queer people into gas chambers and don’t make a secret about it while being Christian.
There already are “conversion” camps run by Christians for queer children. They are horrendous.
Were hatred against queer people not normalized by Christianity her cult would be unable to use her to persecute them.
Also, some Christian denominations are not troubled by someone being a Nazi.
Okay? And plenty of Christians are not like that at all. And I say that as a life-long atheist.
This is like saying the KKK isn’t extra dangerous because lots of non-Klan members are just as racist.
You’re really missing the point here.
Also, you don’t have to tell me about conversion therapy camps. We’re getting my daughter out of this country specifically because Trump selects people in dangerous bigoted cults to be in his cabinet.
But sure, she’s not dangerous at all. Not compared to 10 out of 10 Christians, all of whom hate queer people, including the Christians who are themselves queer.
I am not missing the point, you are, by miles.
That cult is less dangerous than Christianity. You don’t fear them, you fear an extremely anti-queer government. That government will take power due to Christianity’s influence. Those cultist might be invited along for the ride.
But sure, she’s not dangerous at all. Not compared to 10 out of 10 Christians, all of whom hate queer people, including the Christians who are themselves queer.
Not, all Christians hate queer people. It’s irrelevant if they do not seriously try to stop the ones that do from promoting hate. Which most Christian denominations officially do, for most of them any queerness is a sin. Which explains why even non hateful Christians will not seriously challenge the more extreme ones.
As for queer people who identify as Christians, that’s not an argument in your favor, for Christianity being less dangerous. Christianity has probably driven more queer people to suicide for not being “good” Christians than this cult could even dream of hurting. It gets people to run conversion camps and parents to send their own children there. It probably also keeps good people who would otherwise help queer people from helping.
So yeah Christianity is far more dangerous than some nobodies.
Some nobodies? Her genocidal cult is now going to be officially part of the U.S. government. Why does this not bother you just because there are lots of bigoted Christians as well?
Christians have been in charge of the United States since its inception. The current president is a devout Catholic. Queer people have been getting more and more rights despite that.
By your logic, queer people are in less danger now that this genocidal cultist can get all of their private information because she isn’t a Christian. Is that really what you think? Queer people will be safer under Trump? Or are you going to argue that Trump’s professed Christianity is genuine?
And your “queer Christians hate queer people” argument is also noted.
"Nikolai Patrushev, part of the Russian president’s inner circle and former Secretary of the Security Council, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that Trump was duty-bound to act on his words.
Patrushev said: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”
So yeah, sounds about right.
Trump is just putting a person between him and Putin this time around, Russia knew everything the first admin also. He hid meeting notes and visitor logs and nobody did shit, then the assholes voted him back in to finish selling us off because somehow that means “America First”.
This is how we know he takes our National Security VERY Seriously! Law and Order!
This breaks decades-old norms meant to vet candidates for criminal history and conflicts of interest.
Come the fuck on. The FBI background checks are a “norm” too? Do we have actual laws for anything?
The FBI were supposed to check Hunter Biden’s laptop.
America: relies on tradition because laws are for the poor
And the party of tradition won’t care
The actual laws also don’t seem to matter, in all fairness.
Up till now, we didn’t really need them because everyone agreed it was the smart thing to do.
We’re done with smart.
“Up till now, we didn’t really need them because everyone agreed it was the smart thing to do”
That doesn’t sound very smart to begin with.
