This past week, Trump nominees appeared before Senate committees seeking their approval. when Senators ask direct questions, the nominees lied to avoid offending Donald Trump.

Mary Trump observes that the Big Question predictably elicits the Big Lie.

The Big Question is: Who won the 2020 election? Trump nominees dare not say, truthfully, Joe Biden. They have to find a way to pretend they didn’t hear the question or to duck answering.

Mary Trump writes:

Donald’s nominees continue to struggle with the most basic facts. They reject any history that does not fit the mythology he has created, and they seem far more concerned with demonstrating personal loyalty to Donald than with telling the truth to the American people.

Over the past several days, that pattern played out repeatedly during confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill.

Donald’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence refused to acknowledge who won the 2020 presidential election. Another nominee claimed ignorance about Tulsi Gabbard’s role in the FBI raid on Fulton County’s election office in Georgia, despite the fact that it happened only months ago. Donald’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control could not even commit to refusing an illegal order from the President. And Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche once again tied himself into knots attempting to defend the indefensible while continuing to shield Donald from accountability over the Epstein files.

Taken individually, each exchange was disturbing. Taken together, they reveal something much more dangerous. Donald is not selecting public servants. He is selecting people willing to deny objective reality if doing so pleases him.

Donald’s nominee’s are lying through their teeth because they desperately want to continue working for, or begin working for, a pathetic little man they are apparently terrified of offending.

The Senate Intelligence Committee held this confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, Donald’s nominee to replace Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. It is difficult to overstate how important this position is. The Director of National Intelligence oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the NSA, and works closely with the FBI and countless other intelligence organizations. The entire purpose of the position is to provide the President with accurate intelligence, even when that intelligence is inconvenient or politically damaging.

The job is not to protect the President’s feelings. The job is to tell the truth. Does anybody honestly believe somebody unwilling to acknowledge who won an election four years ago would tell Donald something he does not want to hear today?

Not if he wants to keep his job.

Jon Ossoff, Democratic Senator from Georgia recognized exactly what was happening and continued pressing Clayton during the hearing.

This is the exchange: 

Ossoff: It’s a simple question, Mr. Clayton.

Clayton: I’ve answered it.

Ossoff: Who won the 2020 presidential election?

Clayton: I’ve answered it.

Ossoff: You are here asking for the support of senators to lead America’s intelligence community. We’ve established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with this committee and with the American public, but you refuse to answer a simple matter of fact about the 2020 election. Is that right?

Clayton: No, that’s not right.

Ossoff: Then answer the question. Who won the 2020 election?

Clayton: I have answered the question.

Ossoff: Answer it. What is your answer?

Clayton: I’ve given you my answer.

Ossoff: What is your answer? You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you ask to lead America’s intelligence community. Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know you know. Everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?

Clayton: I think I gave you the answer.

No.

He could not given the answer because he knows exactly what would happen if he did.

If he simply stated the obvious fact that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election by nearly eight million votes, Donald would immediately withdraw his nomination.

Clayton understands that. Every nominee understands that. Their confirmations are contingent upon demonstrating absolute loyalty, not competence. That is why they continue speaking in this absurd coded language about certifications, procedures, and Electoral College votes while refusing to utter one simple sentence.

Joe Biden won. Donald Trump lost. Those facts remain intolerable inside the Trump regime because Donald himself cannot tolerate them.

If I had been asking questions during that hearing, I would have taken a different approach. I would have asked who won the 2016 election. Then I would have asked who won the 2012 election. Then 2008. Then 2004.

I suspect they would answer every single one correctly. Only one election has become unspeakable. Only one historical fact has been erased from acceptable Republican discourse. That tells you everything you need to know.

The hearing became even more disturbing when Clayton was questioned about Tulsi Gabbard’s involvement in the FBI raid on Fulton County’s election offices in Georgia earlier this year.

This was not an obscure historical event. It happened only six months ago. It involved the very office Clayton hopes to lead. And yet he suddenly developed an astonishing case of selective amnesia.

This is what Senator Jon Ossoff asked.

Ossoff: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid in Georgia earlier this year?

Clayton: You discussed that with me yesterday in your office.

Ossoff: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year?

Clayton: You brought it to my attention yesterday.

Ossoff: What is going on here? You’ve said at the beginning of this you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee. I’m asking a very simple question. Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year? Yes or no?

Clayton: I was…

Ossoff: You won’t answer that question either.

Clayton: I just said I was made aware of it by you yesterday.

Ossoff: The first time you learned that Director Gabbard was present at that raid was in my office yesterday?

Clayton: It was the first time that, in my recollection, I’ve thought about it recently. Now, was I aware of it before? You brought it to my attention yesterday. I had not thought…

Ossoff: So you had not known until…

Clayton: I had not thought about it until you brought it to my attention yesterday.

Ossoff: Your answers lack credibility. Your testimony lacks credibility. You’re being evasive and you’re not being candid or forthright. Everybody across the country is going to watch this and know that.

Ossoff: Are you aware that former Director Gabbard testified that her presence at the raid was requested by the president?

Clayton: I’m not aware of that until now.

What?

How could he possibly not know? This is a man seeking confirmation to oversee the nation’s intelligence apparatus. He either knew and lied about it, or he truly did not know one of the most controversial actions taken by the office he hopes to inherit. Neither possibility inspires confidence.

As Senator Ossoff pointed out, these confirmation hearings are job interviews. The nominees are expected to answer questions honestly, demonstrate competence, and reassure senators that they can be trusted with enormous responsibility.

Donald Trump’s nominees do exactly the opposite. They evade. They deflect. They pretend not to remember. They refuse to acknowledge reality when reality happens to inconvenience Donald Trump. And somehow they expect the American people to forget everything we have watched unfold over the last several years.

That is not intelligence. It is obedience. And that increasingly appears to be the only qualification Donald requires.

The same pattern continued when the Senate Health Committee held a confirmation hearing for Dr. Erica Schwartz, Donald’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the hearing, Senator Maggie Hassan asked Schwartz a direct and entirely reasonable question: if Donald instructed her to take an action that violated the law, would she follow the law or obey him? For anybody seeking to lead one of the most important public health agencies in the world, the answer should have been immediate and unequivocal.

This is what Senator Maggie Hassan asked Dr. Erica Schwartz:

Hassan: Dr. Schwartz, just a few minutes ago, you said in response to a question from Senator Kaine, you will always follow the law. So just to be clear, if the President of the United States instructs you to take an action that would break the law, will you follow the law or follow the President’s instruction, Dr. Schwartz?

This is what Dr. Erica Schwartz said:

Schwartz: The President would never ask me not to follow the law, but I will always follow the law.

Senator Hassan responded:

Dr. Schwartz, there are multiple examples of the President actively instructing people to break the law over and over again. So I hope you will update yourself on that because it’s not a satisfactory response to say he would never do that.

Yes, Donald would never do the thing he does on a regular basis. That is like saying Donald never lies. Give me a break. This is the quality of nominee we are getting from the Republican Party: people who cannot answer basic questions because the truthful answer might offend Donald. Schwartz could have simply said she would obey the law under all circumstances. Instead, she began by protecting Donald from a hypothetical that is barely hypothetical, given the number of times he has pressured officials to ignore legal limits or bend institutions to serve his personal interests.

Then, of course, there is the execrable Todd Blanche, Donald’s former personal attorney, although he still behaves very much like Donald’s personal attorney, who is also serving as Acting Attorney General. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened a two day confirmation hearing on whether to give Blanche the position permanently. Doing so would inflict untold damage on a Department of Justice that has already been profoundly compromised.

Blanche is the person Donald can rely upon to help with his Epstein problem, and he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is willing to bend over backwards to do exactly that. He is also the Justice Department official who personally met twice with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s convicted co conspirator in the rape and sex trafficking of girls and young women. Blanche was instrumental in Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum security facility, where she now enjoys privileges unavailable to most inmates convicted of comparable crimes.

Blanche is despicable, and yet he is poised to assume the most powerful law enforcement position in the country. During the hearing, Senator Dick Durbin asked whether Blanche would extend to Epstein’s survivors the same personal attention he extended to Maxwell. Ten survivors were sitting in the room. According to Durbin, none of them had been given an opportunity to speak with Blanche or anyone else at the Department of Justice or FBI, despite repeatedly asking to do so.

This is what Senator Dick Durbin asked Todd Blanche:

Let me talk to you for a moment about the survivors who are in the room. There are ten individuals who were exploited and abused by Mr. Epstein. They are here today. None of them have had a chance to speak to anyone in the department or FBI, though they’ve asked repeatedly. So can I get your word under oath that within the next thirty days you will personally sit down with these ten victims and hear their case in terms of what needs to be done by the Department of Justice?

This is what Todd Blanche said:

Chairman, I appreciate them being here today. I also have somebody from my office who’s spent her entire career working on cases like Mr. Epstein’s. She’s in charge of our task force investigating human trafficking. She’s available to talk to them.

Senator Durbin pressed him:

She can sit right next to you. She can sit right next to you when you meet with these survivors.

Blanche responded:

I have never said I will not meet with survivors.

Senator Durbin asked again:

Will you meet with these ten survivors? I’m asking you on the record.

Blanche replied:

If they have lawyers, as you know, I’m prohibited from meeting directly with them.

Blanche does not care about the survivors. He cares only about doing Donald’s bidding. Blanche had no difficulty personally meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted sex trafficker and Epstein’s co conspirator, but when ten survivors ask him to sit down and hear them, he suddenly discovers procedural complications and delegates the responsibility to somebody else.

This is not Blanche’s first time obfuscating about Epstein and the Epstein files. During a Senate hearing in May on the Justice Department’s budget, Senator Jeff Merkley asked Blanche whether the Epstein investigation remained open. Blanche, who now leads the Department of Justice, suddenly appeared unsure what the term “Epstein investigation” even meant.

This is what Senator Jeff Merkley asked Todd Blanche:

I want to go on to the Epstein investigation. Is it closed or open?

Blanche responded:

When you say the Epstein investigation, what are you referring to, Senator?

Senator Merkley clarified:

Well, the FBI said last year in July that it had closed the Epstein investigation. So I’m just using their words. Is it open or closed?

Blanche replied:

I don’t believe the FBI said that. I mean, if you’re referring to…

Senator Merkley interrupted:

Well, you’re head of the Department of Justice. Is the Epstein investigation open or closed?

Blanche answered:

I guess I don’t understand what Epstein investigation means. The investigation of Jeffrey Epstein himself?

These people are liars, but it is so much worse than that. They are seeking positions from which they can destroy the rule of law in this country. Blanche, in particular, has demonstrated that he is absolutely and utterly willing to do so in order to protect one of the most prolific and recidivist criminals in American history, Donald Trump.

The evasions in these hearings are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern. Jay Clayton refuses to say who won the 2020 presidential election because Donald cannot tolerate the truth. Clayton claims ignorance about Tulsi Gabbard’s involvement in a federal raid he should understand if he wants to run the intelligence community. Erica Schwartz cannot simply say she would reject an unlawful order because even acknowledging that Donald might issue one is apparently unacceptable. Todd Blanche will meet personally with Ghislaine Maxwell but will not commit to meeting with Epstein’s survivors. He then pretends not to understand what senators mean when they ask about the Epstein investigation.

They all know what they are doing. They are denying reality, evading basic questions, and humiliating themselves because protecting Donald is more important to them than telling the truth. That is not public service. It is submission to a criminal boss.

The danger is not merely that these people lie. The danger is that they are being placed in charge of institutions whose legitimacy depends upon truth, independence, and fidelity to the law. The Director of National Intelligence must tell the president facts he does not want to hear. The head of the CDC must follow science and the law, even when the president objects. The Attorney General must serve the United States, not the person occupying the Oval Office.

Donald does not want any of that. He wants officials who will indulge his delusions, erase inconvenient facts, and protect him from accountability. He wants people who understand that their positions depend entirely upon refusing to acknowledge reality whenever reality threatens him.

That is why they are lying. They are not confused. They are not forgetful. They are not struggling to understand the questions. They know the truthful answers, and they know that giving them could cost them Donald’s approval and, therefore, their jobs.

Every one of these hearings is exposing the same thing. Donald is not building a government of qualified public servants. He is assembling a collection of loyalists willing to discredit themselves, corrupt the institutions they lead, and deny what everybody knows to be true in order to protect their criminal boss.