Picks for Key Government Posts Play Long Waiting Game

An intensified vetting process has left dozens of President Obama's picks to run the government mired in a seemingly endless confirmation limbo, frustrated and cut off from the departments they are waiting to serve and unable to perform their new duties. In the month since $146,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties forced former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) to withdraw as the nominee to become secretary of health and human services, other appointees say an army of investigators from the White House, the FBI and the Senate has descended on them, demanding years-old receipts from business trips, examining minor charitable contributions, digging through 20 years of their associations, and leading them to hire accountants to field a web of complex tax questions. Some nominees have been allowed to work in related jobs at the departments as they await confirmation. They are not permitted to speak publicly on behalf of the administration and are required to avoid using the offices they hope to get. Others are simply told to wait at home until their nominations clear the Senate.