The plot to derail Chuck Hagel

The demands Republicans are making -- and the threat behind them -- create a troubling precedent
BY STEVE KORNACKI

There are two ways of looking at Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Carl Levin’s surprise decision to postpone an expected vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Defense secretary.

Most likely, Levin is simply trying to deny Republicans an excuse to vote against Hagel, whose confirmation had seemed assured earlier this week when John McCain and several other influential Senate Republicans ruled out the use of a filibuster. With a committee vote on Thursday looming, though, 25 Republicans – including all 12 GOP members of the committee – signed a letter demanding that it be put off.

At issue are requests that several Republican senators made during Hagel’s hearings last week for transcripts of all of his paid speeches and for records of any foreign funding received by businesses or organizations that Hagel has done work with. On Tuesday, Hagel informed the committee that he had made his best effort to provide the speech transcripts, but that some of his engagements had been private off-the-record affairs for which no texts or recordings are available. And he maintained that he’s not in position to provide any information about the funding for the companies he’s worked with, citing an “obligation to maintain the confidentiality of non-public corporate information.”

This prompted the GOP senators to write their letter, and late Wednesday Levin announced that “the committee’s review of the nomination is not yet complete” but that he still intends to hold a vote “as soon as possible.”

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http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/the_plot_to_derail_chuck_hagel/