Senate panel vote on Trump nominees derailed after Warren raises background check concerns

Lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday took the unusual step of delaying a public hearing to consider three of President Trump’s nominees, after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said their FBI background checks raised “significant questions.”

The Banking panel had a 10 a.m. hearing scheduled to consider the nominations of Christopher Phelan to chair the Council of Economic Advisers, John Crews to serve in the National Credit Union Administration and Jeffrey Ledbetter to be inspector general (IG) of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

But Warren, the top Democrat on the panel, said in her opening statement that a briefing she and committee Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) received from the FBI on the bureau’s background checks of the nominees left her wanting answers.

“We should put off this markup until we have confidence that the FBI has run down all the answers,” the Massachusetts Democrat remarked. “All of our colleagues on this committee, Democrats and Republicans, have a right to be fully up to speed, fully........

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