Juvenile Delinquents in the United States Senate

A snapshot of obstructionism and refusal to accept election results

The Democrats are paying consultants exorbitant sums to educate them on why they have become so unpopular among the American electorate, particularly men. They lament, ‘Why are our approval rating so low? Why don’t men like us? How must we change our messaging to become popular again?’

There are by my count something in excess of 983 answers to these questions, maybe more. This short article will shed a little light on just one that was recently brought to my attention. Because it is only one of many instances of Democratic effort to frustrate the President’s agenda, it otherwise would go unnoticed by the general public. I only stumbled upon it by happenstance, as I explain below.

I became interested in the Senate vote on the confirmation of a particular young man, William Kimmitt, who had been nominated for a position that required Senate approval. His nomination was approved 51-47. Not a single Democrat voted to confirm him. Because I know his both his father and an uncle, I became interested and decided to take a closer look at the reasons for the unanimous Democrat opposition. When I did, what I saw was obstructionist tactics and illicit reasons for opposing his nomination, employed by Senate Democrats to thwart the will of the American electorate.

The nomination and votes

President Trump nominated William Kimmitt to be the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade. His nomination was first approved by the Senate Finance Committe on a strict party-line vote on April 29, 2025. It then proceeded to the full Senate where the world’s greatest slowest deliberative body confirmed his nomination three months later. True to form, all Democrats again voted against him.

The Democrats’ opposition strategy: Nominees who support the policies of the president who nominated them must not be confirmed.

When every single Democrat votes against a nominee you might think that there would be some good reason for unanimous ‘no’ votes. Not so. The Democrats’ opposition to Kimmitt was not based upon personal qualifications or abilities. I have seen nothing raising a serious question about his intelligence, integrity or qualifications for the job. In fact, he appears to be highly qualified for the position.

Thus, when I learned of the partisan results, I wondered if some anonymous whistleblower had claimed that Kimmitt had a drinking problem, engaged in sexual harassment, or other improprieties. Or did he supposedly have some radical opinions totally out of the mainstream, that disqualified him from serving as Under Secretary?

The Democrats, however, did not invoke any such disqualifying improprieties. Their opposition boils down to one global objection: Kimmitt will support the policies of the President.

They opposed Kimmitt’s potential involvement in making and administering international trade policy because they feared that his confirmation would facilitate a continuation of what they labelled as President Trump’s destructive trade agenda.

Their opposition was essentially two-pronged: Kimmitt supports the administration’s trade policies in general, and (2) in particular, he supports Trump’s tariff policies. They made no significant mention of any concerns about Kimmitt’s personal qualifications or background. Instead, their objections were overwhelmingly focused on the administration’s trade and tariff policies.

Kimmitt supports the President’s trade policies . . . .

Especially in committee hearings, the Democrats offered broad criticism of the administration’s trade approach claiming that it was chaotic, inconsistent, and lacked clear objectives. Based upon their characterizations of Trump’s trade policy, they argued against Kimmitt’s confirmation because as Under Secretary he would be aligned with those policies.

The ranking Democratic member of the Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon, made clear that the negative votes were driven by the desire to thwart the policies of the elected President. Here is the beginning of his opening statement at the committee hearing on Kimmitt and another nominee, Kenneth Kies.

This morning the Committee will vote on the nominations of William Kimmitt to serve as the Commerce under secretary for international trade, and Kenneth Kies to serve as assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy.

Should they be confirmed, they will play key roles in Donald Trump’s plans to implement the most destructive and damaging economic agenda in American history.

Addressing Kimmitt’s nomination specifically, Wyden left no doubt that the opposition was that he would support the policies of the president for whom he will work.

Donald Trump has nominated Mr. Kimmitt to serve as sort of a grim reaper for the middle class.

Has any Democrat every contended that any Democratic nominee should not support the policies of his president?

Although I am sure that there are exceptions, historically, the Senate generally has confirmed presidential nominations even when there are sharp policy disagreements. Refusals to confirm have been (again, generally) confined to instances of a clear lack of relevant qualifications or egregious personal misconduct. The Senate’s refusal to confirm Senator John Tower as Secretary of Defense after he “was accused of being a drunk and a womanizer” comes to mind.
. . . And tariffs.

As for specifics, the Democrats centered their argument on their own opposition to tariffs. They opposed Kimmitt because he defended the administration’s tariff policy as necessary to combat unfair trade practices. At the Finance Committee hearing Senator Wyden argued that the tariffs were intended to create revenue to — of course — help the super-rich (“to have more money to hand out to people at the upper, upper portion of the top”).

Here this was Wyden regarding the unprecedented warfare that the tariffs would initiate:

He [Trump] has started a trade war on a scale we have never seen before.

On Sunday, July 17, two days before the Senate vote on confirmation, as Miranda Divine reported in the New York Post, Trump nailed the biggest trade deal in U.S. history. The 27 countries of the European Union agreed to a 15% tariff on goods imported into this country — and 50% on steel, aluminum, and copper — without any reciprocal “trade war” sanctions against the U.S. The deal also includes EU commitments to purchase $750 billion in U.S. energy and invest $600 billion in the U.S. economy by 2028. Senator Wyden, that’s $1.3 trillion right there, not even counting revenues from the tariffs.

Despite this grand and unprecedented victory of Trump’s trade policy, Wyden stuck to his preconceived script and cast his vote against Kimmitt’s confirmation. His negative vote presumably was based upon his rash prediction of an unprecedented “trade war” at the Finance Committee hearing two days later.

For those who are interested in Kimmitt’s opening statement before the Finance Committee, it begins in the video below at 21:40.

Delay, delay, delay. Gum up the works and delay again.

That is the Chuck Schumer-directed Democratic strategy. All they want to do is to create a partial government shutdown until they can place their own infiltrators in the administration. They do not care what consequences that has for you or for the country. If they can block President Trump from succeeding in the appointment of an honorable man who should be confirmed promptly, then their leftist “progressive” wing will rejoice.

The Democrats lost the election. They still don’t know why. But their strategy thus far includes trying to deny the American people the benefit of their electoral victory by refusing to confirm clearly qualified presidential nominees if they support the President’s agenda. It is tantamount to a refusal to accept the election results.

Qualifications do not matter. Intelligence and integrity are irrelevant to their calculus. Trump’s policies must be attacked and blocked, if at all possible, even if it means voting down nominations of honorable and qualified people because they support the policies of the President who won the election. And if the Dems cannot block a nomination, then they are determined to do everything possible to gum up the process. When this delay strategy is employed against scores, even hundreds, of nominees then the government will be unable to function fully and efficiently. That is the plan.

A family tradition of bipartisan service

William Kimmitt comes from a family with a tradition of bipartisan service to the country. His father is Robert (Bob) Kimmitt, a West Point graduate, who served in Vietnam with the 173d Airborne Brigade and later graduated from Georgetown Law School. He was promoted to Major General before retiring. Bob’s public service includes, among many other things, service as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under President G.W. Bush. He also was ambassador to Germany under both Presidents Bush and Clinton in the hectic years in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall and the unification of Germany. Of particular interest to this author, the breadth of Bob’s accomplishments is illustrated by the fact that he graduated first in his Army Ranger School class. Trust me readers, that is a surpassing achievement.

William’s uncle, Mark Kimmitt, also is a West Point graduate. After serving with the Army’s elite Ranger Regiment and numerous high-level positions, including key positions with Central Command and NATO, he retired as a brigadier general in 2006. Thereafter Mark continued his public service in civilian positions with both the State Department and the Department of Defense.

Bob and Mark were following the path blazed by William’s paternal grandfather, Stan Kimmitt. The senior Kimmitt also was not a West Pointer, but came up through the ranks as a Mustang. After retiring from the Army as a colonel, he worked for the Democratic majority leader of the Senate, Mike Mansfield. He also served as secretary of the Senate and as secretary for the Democratic senate majority.

As I said, William comes from a family devoted to decades of unblemished service to this Country.

* * * * *

I should add that I have never met or spoken with William, but both Bob and Mark Kimmitt are my good friends (Bob is my West Point classmate). I have not discussed this article in any way with them or any other member of their family. There are other Kimmitt siblings, and it is not my intent to neglect them. My mentions are limited to Bob and Mark because I know them.