Today, January 11, 2017, was the first day of hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFR) on the confirmation of Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State. Tillerson evaded direct questions about if he would continue to press for removal of sanctions against Russia. He refused to denounce Russia’s human rights abuses of Syrian civilians. He equivocated about whether climate change is caused by human activity. He seemed clueless about world affairs, outside of Russia. He played dumb about Russian hacking. And he gave little indication that he would act independently of his boss, Donald Trump.
The hearing will continue Thursday, January 12, and from that point the SFR can decide to move the nomination to the entire Senate for an up or down vote, or stall it in committee, effectively killing the nomination. We want Tillerson’s nomination to die in the SFR committee. If the SFR Senators get enough calls from their constituents, it can happen. Public pressure has prevented complete gutting of the Government Ethics Office, and has postponed several hearings that Trump originally wanted on 1/12/17
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UPDATE:
Tillerson had a brutal day of questioning yesterday, and now it seems that his nomination may not survive the SFR committee. Rubio won't vote for him, and none of the 8 Democrats will. That makes it a 9-9 split, since Barbara Boxer hasn't been replaced on the SFR committee.
So keep those calls and emails comin', people. We may be able to scuttle this nomination yet.
Thanks to good ol' Harry Reid, if any of these cabinet level nominations reach the full Senate, you can count on them all being confirmed. They only need 50 votes, since now Vice President Mike Pence can cast the tie breaker.
A truly poorly conceived Democratic tactic that backfired badly on them.