NC’s Dan Bishop asked at confirmation hearing: Will he be loyal to the law, or Trump?
Former Rep. Dan Bishop was asked Tuesday morning whether, if President Donald Trump told him to do something that violated the law, he would follow the law or Trump.
He wouldn’t give a direct answer.
“I’m confident that President Trump will issue lawful orders,” Bishop responded. “It would not be up to me, serving in a non-lawyer capacity, to decide what is lawful and not lawful.”
Bishop, 60, of Waxhaw, who is a lawyer, was testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs regarding his nomination by Trump to serve as deputy director of budget at the Office of Management and Budget.
President Richard Nixon created OMB in 1970 to help presidents meet policy, budget management and regulatory objectives, according to the White House’s website.
“We rely on OMB to carefully scrutinize agency budgets and identify redundancies,” said committee Chairman Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky. “It is OMB’s job to ensure that federal agencies are not rubber-stamping costly new programs subsidized by the American taxpayer.
“If confirmed, Rep. Bishop will have a front-row seat to the entire federal budget process and a chance to say no when agencies continue to demand endless expansions in authority and unchecked spending.”
The senators know Bishop. He served in Congress from September 2019 until the end of 2024 and made a name for himself as a flamethrower while serving on the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which caused gridlock in the House during his last term.
Bishop, who served in public office on the local, state and federal levels, decided not to run for reelection, instead setting his sights on becoming the first Republican elected as attorney general in North Carolina in over a century. He lost.
And on Tuesday morning, it was clear that the Senate committee was divided, along party lines, on Bishop’s nomination.
Questions about Trump
The usually poised congressman appeared, at times, rattled by some questions from Democrats, occasionally stumbling over his words.
During his testimony he also refused to commit to an answer on whether Trump can spend money differently than how Congress appropriated it, which would violate the Constitution. He again relied on not being the lawyer making that decision.
“I’m concerned, if confirmed, that you will not carry out the laws of Congress that have passed, that is funding our communities, and that is simply not acceptable,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Gary Peters of Michigan. “I have serious questions about your positions on the federal workforce.”
Peters told Bishop that his record and views — including support for legislation that would make all federal employees “at will,” making it easier to remove them — gives him serious pause on how Bishop would manage the federal workforce.
He also questioned what he called Bishop’s “disregard for independent oversight” and accused Bishop of revealing the name of a whistleblower as retaliation, likely a reference to Bishop posting on social media about the author of a memo that led to impeachment of Trump.
Bishop was questioned about Trump and his advisers’ decision to fire federal employees.
Bishop said he didn’t believe the firings were done indiscriminately. Sen. Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, pushed Bishop further on it, asking about specific groups of people, including some who were fired and then hired back days later.
Bishop said sometimes when changes are made, you realize you have to move back in the other direction.
“In my view, senator, that doesn’t make it indiscriminate,” Bishop said.
Bishop was largely supported by Republicans on the committee and introduced by fellow North Carolinian Sen. Ted Budd.
Budd, a Republican from Davie County, served with Bishop in the House Freedom Caucus while they both represented the state in the lower chamber.
Budd said when he was in his early 20s, before he began in public service, he was often told if you want to see a great leader, to meet Bishop.
“I’ve seen firsthand his thoughtfulness, his deep understanding of the issues, his love for our country, his care for people, and his commitment to stopping runaway spending and getting federal budget control,” Budd said. “I have no doubt that Dan would bring the same tenacity to the job at OMB that he has shown throughout his career, both as a litigator and in his time serving the people of North Carolina.”
Bishop was one of two people to testify Tuesday morning before the committee.
Former Los Alamitos, California, Mayor Troy Edgar, nominee for deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security, also testified before the committee for his nomination as deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
The committee bounced questions between the two men during the one-and-a-half hour hearing.
The committee will meet again Thursday to vote on their nominations and if successful, their names will be sent to the Senate floor for a vote by the full body.
