A slate of President Donald Trump’s stalled nominees aren’t going back to the Senate this year, either turning to administration jobs that don’t need confirmation or just removing themselves from the process.
The Senate returned around 90 pending civilian nominees that weren’t confirmed in the first session of this Congress back to the White House in January, and Trump has now resubmitted most of of them for the second session. But nine haven’t been sent back, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis of congressional records.
After languishing in the Senate, some of those picks are finding roles elsewhere.
Amer Ghalib, for example, was tapped to be ambassador to Kuwait, but faced opposition from Republican senators that doomed his confirmation.
Republicans criticized Ghalib, a Trump supporter who served as mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., for his past comments, arguing he praised the Muslim Brotherhood and criticized Israel. Sen.
Ghalib announced that he decided not to pursue the nomination and would instead take a role with the administration as a senior adviser for strategic partnerships at AmeriCorps.
“I think he was unsuitable to be ambassador, so I’m glad that’s the outcome,” Cruz told Bloomberg Government. On Ghalib saying he was joining AmeriCorps, Cruz said “that’s a different issue.”
The frequency of finding roles for candidates who can’t clear a 51-vote hurdle in the Senate underscores the White House’s prioritization of hiring loyalists within the administration, but also demonstrates a rare area of pushback from the Republican-controlled Congress that’s more often in line with the White House’s policy and staffing aims. Nominees can lose only three GOP votes if all Democrats oppose, and the Trump administration withdrew a record number of nominees last year.
Another nominee who wasn’t resubmitted is former Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), who was tapped for ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
Walker, whose nomination was stalled since he was picked in April and faced concerns from senators in his state, withdrew to accept a new role as principal adviser on global religious freedom at the State Department. He said in a statement he would still work closely with the administration “in confronting religious persecution.”
These new instances add to the list of Trump nominees who failed to garner enough Senate support and then landed in the administration last year. Those include Paul Ingrassia, who withdrew from consideration as head of the Office of Special Counsel and is now acting general counsel of the US General Services Administration, as well as Ed Martin, who was nominated to be US attorney for DC but is now the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.
A White House official said nominations have been withdrawn for differing reasons, including clerical changes, additional responsibilities to the original role, or new opportunities. The official said withdrawal decisions are never easy but sometimes need to be done.
Bowing Out
Another nominee sent back to Trump who found a new job in the last month is John Guard, Trump’s former pick for a vacancy on the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida. That nomination stalled after a scandal around a state Medicaid settlement diversion used to help fund opposition to a recreational marijuana ballot measure.
Since his nomination was sent back to Trump’s desk, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) named Guard to serve as judge on the Second District Court of Appeal starting this month.
Some picks are taking themselves out of the running. Greg Autry, who was tapped to serve as the chief financial officer at NASA in 2025—who was also previously unsuccessfully nominated in 2020—said he asked for his nomination not to be sent again.
“On both occasions my nomination expired at year end, without a Senate vote,” Autry said in a post on LinkedIn. “I have decided not to pursue confirmation again and have requested that I not be renominated.”
Other ambassador nominees who haven’t been sent back to the Senate include Nick Adams, a right-wing influencer whose nomination last year to be ambassador to Malaysia led to protests in the country; and Florida personal injury attorney Daniel Newlin, who Trump picked him to be ambassador to Colombia in December 2024 but was never confirmed.
There are a slew of reasons for why the slate of nominees aren’t being resubmitted.
Todd Lindsey, who was nominated for chief financial officer at the Department of Agriculture in July, also hasn’t been resent to the Senate. Lindsey has been listed as acting under secretary for rural development since September of last year. The USDA didn’t return a request for comment.
Stuart Levenbach’s nomination to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also hasn’t been sent back to the Senate. The nomination of Levenbach, who works at the Office of Management and Budget, was a maneuver to keep OMB Director Russell Vought in place as acting director of CFPB — and he’ll be able to stay in that role for another 210 days from when it was returned. Levenbach is now the US chief statistician, Bloomberg News reported last month.
Trump set a record nominations pace early last year, which likely had some bearing on the high number of withdrawals, said Jenny Mattingley, a vice president at the Partnership for Public Service. Now that pace has slowed, and there’s a trend of officials taking on multiple acting roles.
“They’re dual-hatting folks instead of putting them to the Senate,” Mattingley said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: