President Donald Trump’s pick for the No. 2 post at the White House budget office — a position key to orchestrating Trump’s orders to freeze funding — has cleared a critical committee vote, sending the nomination to the Senate floor.
In a 11-10 vote, the Senate Budget Committee backed Dan Bishop’s nomination to serve as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Senate is expected to vote to confirm Bishop in the next few weeks, officially seating him as right-hand man to OMB Director Russ Vought.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the committee’s top Democrat, said before the Wednesday committee vote that Democratic senators are “troubled” by Bishop’s support for Trump’s orders to freeze funding Congress previously passed into law. Merkley also questioned Bishop’s promise to follow the direction of Vought, who led OMB in withholding aid to Ukraine and other efforts during Trump’s first presidency.
“What I did witness through his testimony is that he’s an acolyte of Vought, and Vought is a determined Trumpian minion who will follow Trump’s direction to break the law and the Constitution,” Merkley said.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee already endorsed Bishop, who was a House lawmaker until this year and has been serving as a senior adviser to the White House budget office during the confirmation process.
Throughout his Senate vetting, Bishop repeatedly told lawmakers that it wouldn’t be his job at OMB to judge whether Trump’s orders are lawful under the decades-old impoundment law — which allows presidents to withhold money Congress has appropriated — despite his credentials as a lawyer who ran for attorney general of North Carolina last year. He did tell senators last week that there is “a compelling argument that there is power in the executive in the nature of impoundment,” as lawsuits seeking to block Trump’s funding freezes are being argued in courtrooms throughout the country.
“Exactly what its contours are, I don’t know,” Bishop told the Budget Committee in his confirmation hearing before the panel this month. “But I support the president’s plan to use impoundment to get federal government spending in line.”
