Does Trump know what it means to "vet" a nominee?

Does Donald Trump know what it means to vet someone he's nominating to run an important part of government, or to be a federal judge?

Vetting someone for government office means scrutinizing their record for everything imaginable:  job history, financial irregularities, conflicts of interest, overseas travel, qualifications for the job, political affiliations, personal relationships, behavior that might cause a scandal or simply reflect badly on the administration.

From the nominations Trump has made it appears that either:  (1) he has no concept of even considering someone's qualifications or appropriateness for the job;  or (2) he perversely appoints foxes to guard henhouses.

In support of #1 is the high percentage of his nominees who have had to withdraw as there is more scrutiny of their finances or prior activities that raise public objections.  Not because they are deemed to be unqualified or have conflicts of interests with the mission of the position.   Those don't seem to matter to Trump.

This latest withdrawal will be the 12th Trump actual nominee to do so.  That doesn't include names that were floated and dropped before an announced nomination.  Twelve is not an unusually high number -- except when you consider that Trump has made relatively few nominations so far (about one-third of ones important enough to require confirmation by the Senate).

I'm leaning toward #2, because he has in fact made a few good appointments -- and thanks be for those few, like Gen. Kelly, Gen. Maddis, and Gen. McMaster.  And at least Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch has a good legal mind, even if his conservative mind-set is much further to the right than we want.

And Tillerson at least seems to want to be a good Secretary of State but is operating with a scandalously reduced staff.   For example, we still don't have an ambassador in South Korea, as important as that post is right now.   And they seemed to have just eliminated the whole level of Deputy Secretaries, usually the crucial diplomats with vital knowledge of and relationships with counterparts in the region or country that they oversee.

And then there are all the others.  For example, picking Scott Pruit to run the EPA, when his main claim to fame was that, as Oklahoma's Attorney General and as a climate change denier, he had sued the EPA fourteen times challenging its regulations.   Or Tom Price to run Health and Human Services, when his notoriety came from his working to defeat the Affordable Care Act and his scandal-level, inside-trading in med company stocks.   We got rid of him, not because of his conflicts of interest but because he loved chartered jet travel too much.

And then there were the two really really bad choices, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, neither of whom must have had any vetting at all.  They both had so many red flags if you wanted to see them.   They came in from the campaign -- and brought Russia and money woes with them.

The behavior in office of all these men (as well as others like DeVos, Zinka, Mnuchin, Ross, and Perry) could well have been predicted by vetting, and even by what was publicly known about some of them.

Which brings us to Trump's latest nominee, Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) to be Trump's "drug czar," meaning Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy.  He was awaiting Senate confirmation when the Washington Post and "60 Minutes" both ran investigative stories about his past that should have disqualified him for any such post.   Marino had led a successful effort to pass legislation in the House that made it harder for law enforcement to prosecute opioid manufacturers.   As described by the Post:

"A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation's major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills."

Trump was asked to respond to that, in reference to Marino's nomination;  and, as he's done so many times, he pretended not to know about this and said he would look into it.   Two days later Marino withdrew his name from consideration.

But it's not that the Trump people didn't know.   Marino's name had been floated -- by them -- back in the spring as a possible nominee to head the whole Drug Enforcement Administration.   Marino's legislative tilt toward drug makers was known at the time, and after public airing he withdrew from that nomination, citing an illness in his family.   When his name came up again for this new position, a former person holding the office said, "I was shocked . . . it's all part of public record."

Trump really wanted to give Marino a good job.   "He was an early supporter of mine. . . He's a great guy."   But we'll look into the report, he said.   You see, it's never until there is public scrutiny that can't be denied that Trump seems to care about such things.   Whenever he can get away with putting foxes in henhouses, he will do so -- except when it comes to national security, it seems.   We can be grateful that he has respect for "my generals," at least.

Trump's priorities seem to go in something like this order:  (1)  loyalty, rewarding supporters;  (2)  political payoffs and campaign promises;  (3)  getting rid of anything that Obama did;  (4) conservative policy advancement;  (5)  what's good for the American people;  (6)  qualification for the job -- or not;  doesn't much matter.

Ralph