Now this is getting ridiculous. From the Journal:
President Barack Obama's nominee for the top international post at the Treasury Department has been sidetracked by a Senate committee's investigation into her personal tax returns.
Lael Brainard, nominated in March as Undersecretary for International Affairs, is the latest Obama appointee to be tripped up by the Senate Finance Committee. Of particular concern is Ms. Brainard's use of a home-office tax deduction, according to people familiar with the inquiry.
Funny, when I first read these two paragraphs, I immediately thought, "what a bummer"--Brainard had originally been nominated to serve as Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs. Had she stayed there, it would have fallen to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vet her nomination. And something tells me they're a little less fastidious about tax returns than the Finance Committee. But then I was reminded of this from later in the piece:
The delay in Ms. Brainard's nomination is especially noteable because her husband, Kurt Campbell, was confirmed by the Senate on June 25 as Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs. If the couple filed a joint return, any errors would be his, too. State Department nominees are under the jurisdiction of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, and they are not subject to Finance Committee vetting.
That's just doubly ridiculous.