When Linda McMahon, Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Education, arrived on Capitol Hill for her confirmation hearing, the expectation was that the former wrestling company executive would face a lot of questions about the White House’s plan to shut down the agency she’s been nominated to lead. Those expectations, of course, were entirely correct.
But there was another line of inquiry that stood out for me.
Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire asked McMahon whether she would “do what you are legally required to do” if Trump gave her a directive “that breaks the law.”
The Cabinet agency nominee rejected the premise of the question. “The president will not ask me to do anything that is against the law,” McMahon answered.
On the surface, there was an obvious flaw in the response: Trump has already demonstrated, on multiple occasions in recent weeks, an apparent indifference to the rule of law and legal restrictions. The idea that he would never ask a member of his team “to do anything that is against the law” is difficult to take seriously.
Just below the surface, there was a related problem: We need not speculate as to whether or not this president would issue illegal directives to members of his administration, because according to former members of Trump’s team, he did exactly that during his first term. Indeed, if McMahon has any doubts, I’d recommend she contact former White House chief of staff John Kelly or former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
But stepping back, there was also something familiar about the exchange between Hassan and McMahon — because other Trump nominees answered the same question in similar ways. The Washington Post published a good round-up on this a couple of week ago, highlighting a series of confirmation hearing answers.
Again, we already know that Trump — a convicted felon who appears to be ignoring legal guardrails — has been accused by former members of his team of giving illegal orders. Pretending this is a wild hypothetical about circumstances that could never arise is absurd. But just as notable is the simple fact that other Cabinet nominees have confronted this same question in recent decades, and they’ve tended to give a far better answer. As the Post’s analysis noted, for example, when Trump nominated Chris Wray to lead the FBI, and he faced the question about what he would do in response to an illegal order from the president, his answer was quite good. “You can’t do a job like this without being prepared to either quit or be fired, at a moment’s notice, if you’re asked to do something or confronted with something that is either illegal, unconstitutional or even morally repugnant,” Wray told senators. The lingering question is obvious: Why won’t the current crop of Trump nominees take the same line?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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