President Trump's nominee to be America's ambassador to Iceland had never been to the country. His pick for Slovenia shared fake far-right posts on Facebook. And his choice for the Bahamas didn't even know the islands weren't part of the U.S.
So how did these seemingly random people get tapped for such major government positions? It could be because they — along with 11 other questionable nominees — all gave an average of $350,000 each to President Trump's inaugural committee, NBC News reports.
In a report published Wednesday, NBC News looked through inaugural donors and found that 14 of them were eventually chosen for ambassador jobs. The most alarming pick was for the United Arab Emirates, a country smack dab in the center of the Middle East. Past presidents always picked career diplomats for that "sensitive" post, but Trump chose "a wealthy real estate developer with no diplomatic experience," NBC News says. That nominee, John Rakolta, gave $250,000 to Trump's inaugural committee and has yet to be confirmed.
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Rakolta isn't alone. Five other donors turned nominees have spent months waiting for Senate confirmation votes, NBC News recounts. And of the approximately 250 ambassadorships the U.S. has altogether, 52 of them are sitting empty. For comparison, former President Barack Obama had 11 empty spots at this point in his presidency, while former President George W. Bush had 15.
It's "not unusual for a president to offer plum posts to wealthy donors," NBC News concedes. But "since the 1950s," political appointees have only made up about a third of all confirmed ambassadors, NBC News says. They make up about half of Trump's crew. Read more at NBC News.
