Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

We have yet another casualty in the vetting wars:

Democratic sources say that H. Rodgin Cohen, a partner in the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and the leading candidate for Deputy Treasury Secretary, has withdrawn from consideration.

….Democratic sources said that an issue arose in the final stages of the vetting process.

Cohen had risen to the top after the withdrawal last week of expected deputy treasury secretary pick Annette Nazareth. As one source put it, “it’s back to the drawing board.”

Without knowing what the “issue” was, I guess there’s no way to comment on this.  But if it didn’t come up until the final stages of the vetting process, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s substantively minor but politically dangerous, the kind of thing that grandstanding senators will turn into a cause célèbres even though they know it’s fundamentally trivial.  And when they’re done, they’ll go back to asking why Obama isn’t taking the financial crisis more seriously.

Bah.  Get the Senate out of this whole process.  Let ’em confirm cabinet heads and leave it at that.  Do they really need to pretend to care about every deputy and assistant deputy too?

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate