President Trump's executive branch is still very empty, and that's not just because a massive number of his nominees have resigned.
We're two years into Trump's presidency, and nearly a quarter of the approximately 1,200 executive spots that require Senate confirmation are still sitting empty. The Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service have been tracking about 700 of those positions, and found in an analysis published Monday that 275 of them are still unfilled.
Trump has long blamed Democrats for the sparse staff, seeing as just over half of his nominees have been confirmed, the analysis found. But 150 of those spots are empty simply because "the White House has not bothered to nominate people" to fill them, the Post writes. That problem is especially severe in the Interior and Justice Departments, where just 41 percent and 43 percent of Senate-confirmed jobs are filled, respectively.
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The most obvious vacancies are at the top of the ladder: Five Cabinet-level posts are empty, and three of them have no official nominee. Another 18 ambassadorships are empty, leaving the U.S. without representatives in several unstable countries. There's also no one nominated to direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, or Bureau of Land Management, among dozens of other high-profile spots.
Trump leaves these positions unfilled so he can have "more flexibility," he said Sunday, neglecting to mention all the legal issues that surround having unconfirmed executives make official decisions. It's a dubious balancing act that even Republicans are starting to have a problem with, the Post reports. Read more at The Washington Post, or browse an entire database of executive positions here.
