Republicans will do a favor for themselves and their cult leader Trump by rejecting unqualified cabinet nominees

Echo opinion published in The Columbian a Vancouver, Washington newspaper, by Carl P. Leubsdorf is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News

Even Trump's (grade of "C") - more of less best choices, like Secretary of State-designee Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary-designee Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary-designee Brooke Rollins, earned their jobs by their fealty to Trump. Rubio and Bessent abandoned past positions on Ukraine and tariffs, respectively, to bring their views in line with his.

Most won’t encounter confirmation problems.
Unfortunately, however, their level of expertise and competence is not matched by Trump’s choices for Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Education and director of the FBI.

The Republicans in the House and Senate will lose nothing if they impeach Trump. At a time with the GOP has a political majority in all three branches of government, this is the pefect time to declare him to be incompetent❗

Each is a strong candidate for rejection. Here’s why:

• Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth — National Guard service, even on active duty, is no qualification to run the sprawling Pentagon. And the Fox (Fake❗)News anchor’s denigration of women in the military and history of questionable sexual conduct should disqualify him at a time the Pentagon is coping with these issues. His standing took a new hit with the release of emails in which his own mother called out his history of sexual misconduct. “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” she wrote in the 2018 email which The New York Times obtained from an unnamed family member. In addition, a lengthy review of Hegseth’s record by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer disclosed allegations of financial and personal misconduct in several prior positions.

• Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard — Between her questionable ties to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and statements echoing Russian criticism of the U.S. role in Ukraine, the former Hawaii Democratic congresswoman would seem like an especially bad choice to manage the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
• Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — When Trump rewarded Kennedy for his support by naming him to “run wild” over the nation’s health programs, he opened a pandora’s box that could threaten the very health of Americans he has vowed to improve. Not only has Kennedy denigrated the need for childhood vaccinations, he is yet another nominee with a history of sexual misconduct.
• Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon — The former president of World Wrestling Entertainment and his first term Small Business Administrator also has sexual misconduct issues. A lawsuit accuses McMahon and her husband, WWE founder Vince McMahon, of ignoring alleged sexual abuse by a WWE employee against teenaged boys. In 2010, she resigned from the Connecticut State Board of Education after the Hartford Courant reported she misrepresented her education qualifications.
• Federal Bureau of Investigation director — Trump plans to demand the resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Republican he appointed after firing his predecessor, and install Trump loyalist and fierce FBI critic Kash Patel, a major perpetrator of the falsehood that Ukraine, not Russia ❓, tried to influence the 2016, election. Patel has labeled the FBI “a threat to the American people.”

Because the Senate’s 47 Democrats will likely line up against most of Trump’s most questionable nominees, it will take at least four Republicans to defeat them. These confirmation votes will test how seriously the Senate plans to maintain its constitutional role in the Trump years.

Senate rejection would actually do the president-elect a favor. Some of the nominees would only cause Trump (what goes around comes around) grief, if they’re confirmed.