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Remember all those stories about how brilliant the Obama transition team was and how they were doing more to vet their nominees than ever before. There were stories about the humongous questionnaire that potential nominees had to fill out. But what they couldn't control for was their own arrogance that they were picking people so absolutely wonderful that any questions about tax problems would be mere speed bumps on the road to painless confirmations. The Washington Post yesterday reported on that cocksure arrogance that led to the Daschle debacle.
The situation also raised questions about how thoroughly Obama transition officials had vetted their Cabinet nominees.
Officials said yesterday that myriad tax questions had been posed to Daschle, Killefer and Geithner. But the problems were largely dismissed as less important than the nominees' qualifications for the major tasks they were expected to confront in office, the officials said.
One person familiar with the appointment process said Obama and his top advisers were concerned about the possibility of political "combustion" occurring over the tax issues. "People were not unaware that might happen," the official said. But they believed that Geithner and Daschle were uniquely qualified.
"We knew he'd get punched around on this, and that he had made a painful mistake," John D. Podesta, who co-chaired Obama's transition team, said of Daschle. "But we believed he could be confirmed and that he was -- and I still believe this -- the right guy for the job of leading the department and finally getting health-care reform across the finish line."
As Obama assembled his administration, he conducted the vetting process methodically and required unprecedented scrutiny of candidates' personal, financial and professional backgrounds.
Potential picks had to answer 63-item questionnaires, which an army of lawyers, many of them volunteers, then scoured. Nine of the questions were about taxes. No. 37 asked whether "a tax lien or other collection procedure" had ever been instituted against the nominee, and No. 39 asked: "Do you have any expectation that you will be the subject of any tax, financial or other audit or inquiry?"
People familiar with the Obama transition said Daschle did not reveal his tax issue on the questionnaire.
"The car and driver is not something that will come up in a review of documents or tax returns," said a Washington lawyer who helped vet candidates. "It really is something you find out about in doing an interview of the potential nominee. You just have to ask the questions."
Some close to the process said the Obama team believed that the various tax errors were innocent mistakes and that any furor over them could be overcome.
"Every time a nominee gets in trouble for something, another question gets added to the questionnaire," one transition official complained. "We're getting to the point -- Killefer might be a better example -- where you're [having to hire] people out of some hermetically sealed tank."
Clay Johnson III, who ran President George W. Bush's transition team and later served in the White House as presidential personnel director, said he is surprised to see three of Obama's nominees weighed down by tax troubles considering that paying -- or not paying -- taxes has long been the top concern for vetters.
"It's huge," Johnson said. "Do you pay your taxes? . . . It is something that is checked religiously."
But Podesta and the other transition folk just didn't think it mattered because they were so convinced that someone like Tim Geithner or Tom Daschle were so superb that the little folk wouldn't care about that whole not habit of not paying taxes. They might not have found out about Daschle's free limousine habit ahead of time, but when they did, they were convinced that it just didn't matter. And now they have to deal with the fallout including becoming the butt of the late night comics. That is the reward for such arrogance.
Remember all those stories about how brilliant the Obama transition team was and how they were doing more to vet their nominees than ever before. There were stories about the humongous questionnaire that potential nominees had to fill out. But what they couldn't control for was their own arrogance that they were picking people so absolutely wonderful that any questions about tax problems would be mere speed bumps on the road to painless confirmations. The Washington Post yesterday reported on that cocksure arrogance that led to the Daschle debacle.
The situation also raised questions about how thoroughly Obama transition officials had vetted their Cabinet nominees.
Officials said yesterday that myriad tax questions had been posed to Daschle, Killefer and Geithner. But the problems were largely dismissed as less important than the nominees' qualifications for the major tasks they were expected to confront in office, the officials said.
One person familiar with the appointment process said Obama and his top advisers were concerned about the possibility of political "combustion" occurring over the tax issues. "People were not unaware that might happen," the official said. But they believed that Geithner and Daschle were uniquely qualified.
"We knew he'd get punched around on this, and that he had made a painful mistake," John D. Podesta, who co-chaired Obama's transition team, said of Daschle. "But we believed he could be confirmed and that he was -- and I still believe this -- the right guy for the job of leading the department and finally getting health-care reform across the finish line."
As Obama assembled his administration, he conducted the vetting process methodically and required unprecedented scrutiny of candidates' personal, financial and professional backgrounds.
Potential picks had to answer 63-item questionnaires, which an army of lawyers, many of them volunteers, then scoured. Nine of the questions were about taxes. No. 37 asked whether "a tax lien or other collection procedure" had ever been instituted against the nominee, and No. 39 asked: "Do you have any expectation that you will be the subject of any tax, financial or other audit or inquiry?"
People familiar with the Obama transition said Daschle did not reveal his tax issue on the questionnaire.
"The car and driver is not something that will come up in a review of documents or tax returns," said a Washington lawyer who helped vet candidates. "It really is something you find out about in doing an interview of the potential nominee. You just have to ask the questions."
Some close to the process said the Obama team believed that the various tax errors were innocent mistakes and that any furor over them could be overcome.
"Every time a nominee gets in trouble for something, another question gets added to the questionnaire," one transition official complained. "We're getting to the point -- Killefer might be a better example -- where you're [having to hire] people out of some hermetically sealed tank."
Clay Johnson III, who ran President George W. Bush's transition team and later served in the White House as presidential personnel director, said he is surprised to see three of Obama's nominees weighed down by tax troubles considering that paying -- or not paying -- taxes has long been the top concern for vetters.
"It's huge," Johnson said. "Do you pay your taxes? . . . It is something that is checked religiously."
But Podesta and the other transition folk just didn't think it mattered because they were so convinced that someone like Tim Geithner or Tom Daschle were so superb that the little folk wouldn't care about that whole not habit of not paying taxes. They might not have found out about Daschle's free limousine habit ahead of time, but when they did, they were convinced that it just didn't matter. And now they have to deal with the fallout including becoming the butt of the late night comics. That is the reward for such arrogance.
