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Senate Republicans have received marching orders from President Donald Trump to ram through his remaining nominees, but Democrats are slow-walking the process over some key nominations.
Some of the nominees giving Senate Democrats the most heartburn include Jeanine Pirro, Emil Bove, Mike Waltz and Paul Ingrassia, all of whom Trump tapped for key roles in his administration.
Most of them have all slowly moved through the process, but they are just a few of many other, less controversial figures that are being held up by delay tactics.
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There are now over 140 pending “civilian” nominations for positions across the gauntlet of federal agencies, ambassadorships and judgeships. While the Senate has moved at a blistering rate over the last six months to confirm nominees — they’ve clocked nearly 100 so far — Trump has called on Republicans to stay in town rather than leave Washington for a roughly month-long break.
Republicans are trying to hammer out a deal with Democrats to see that more low-hanging fruit nominees, like ambassadors, get the green light for a faster process on the Senate floor, and are willing to keep lawmakers in town over the weekend if their counterparts don’t relent.
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“Democrats want to get out of here for August recess, then fine, give us a certain amount of en blocs that we can go through with non-controversial nominees,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said.
Bove, who currently works at the Justice Department but previously served as Trump’s personal attorney, has been a particular target for Democrats. Trump nominated him to serve a lifetime appointment to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and he is nearing the end of his confirmation process.
Democrats have accused Bove of being unfit for the role, and listed whistleblower allegations that he suggested the Trump administration could ignore judicial orders, among other sticking points, as reason enough to try to subvert his appointment to the bench.
“I have never advised a Department of Justice attorney to violate a court order,” Bove said during his confirmation hearing.
He’s also become a prime target of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats, including Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who staged a walkout in protest of his nomination during a recent hearing.
“He’s the extreme of the extreme,” Schumer said. “He’s not a jurist. He’s a Trumpian henchman. That seems to be the qualification for appointees these days.”
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Pirro, a former Fox News host who was tapped to be the top federal prosecutor in D.C., has similarly faced resistance — Senate Democrats walked out of the same meeting discussing her and Bove’s nominations — but not near the degree that Bove has.
Still, she was advanced out of committee on a party-line vote, coming another step closer to taking over the position she holds in the interim on a permanent basis.
Trump tapped Waltz to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the last cabinet position to be filled by the administration.
Waltz stepped away from his original role as national security advisor following “Signalgate,” a highly publicized blunder that saw him add a journalist to a group chat on the messaging app Signal that included Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and others discussing the plans and execution of a strike against Yemen. He also advanced out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ingrassia’s nomination as special counsel, a position that would see him lead the government watchdog Office of the Special Counsel, was derailed last week when his name was pulled from a list of other nominees slated to have a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Ingrassia has come under scrutiny for his connections with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, and his limited career as a lawyer — he graduated from law school three years ago.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Senate panel for comment on Ingrassia’s hearing cancellation.
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