Panetta Hearing Delayed
Well, this doesn’t look good. CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta was supposed to have his confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Tuesday morning. Only he apparently failed to file some paperwork and now the committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), has decided to delay the hearing a bit, Politico’s Kenneth Vogel reports.
“„“This is all Panetta’s doing,” said a Senate aide familiar with the proceedings. “Panetta has known about this and has just failed to send his in as of yet.”
Panetta, of course, ran into early confirmation trouble with Feinstein. That seemed to have been smoothed over — she’s pledged to support him — but this has been a rare rocky cabinet-level nomination for the Obama administration. It’s unclear to me what paperwork hasn’t been filed, or why, but I’ll update as soon as I have that information. A Senate intelligence aide would only say that they’re not having the hearing this week.
