An Alarming Recess Appointment

You’re left asking why?

Over the confirmation hold objections of three Senators, Barack Obama made a recess appointment of Maria del Carmen Aponte as United States Ambassador to El Salvador. 

Aponte is no stranger to the national stage, or to controversy.  She was nominated as Ambassador to the Dominican Republic by Bill Clinton in 1994.  During the confirmation process, the FBI raised a red flag.  Aponte’s live-in lover from 1982 to 1994 was a suspected Cuban spy.  Aponte reportedly made “conflicting statements” to the FBI and refused to take a polygraph test.   Clinton withdrew her nomination rather than expose the Administration to an embarrassing public hearing confirmation scandal.

Aponte’s love interest and contacts with other Cuban intelligence officials (read spies) surfaced again in hearings in March of this year with the El Salvador nomination.   Aponte claimed her relationships were just “social.”  However, her testimony was less than convincing, and prompted a request for more information from the White House and a delayed vote by a host of Senators. 

Three Senators including Jim DeMint (R-SC) eventually placed a hold on her confirmation pending further information about her background.  "The White House continued to deny senators information, despite numerous requests, and then during recess, appoints her to circumvent the advice and consent process.  So much for transparency and accountability,” DeMint said.

Aponte is heavily invested in a variety of extreme left wing organizations including the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration, the National Council of La Raza, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Why would Obama feel so compelled to force the appointment of someone with such radical ties and suspect loyalties?  Investor’s Business Daily connects the dots and offers a possible motivation for Obama taking such a political risk.  In 2004, while an administrator for the Puerto Rican government, Aponte led a registration drive of 300,000 new voters to, as she said, “influence the 2004 U.S. election,” in which Puerto Ricans didn’t vote.  “With El Salvador the second-biggest U.S. supplier of illegal immigrants…she may be there to help facilitate Obama’s amnesty plans and create a Democratic voting bloc there as well.” 

Politically appointed Ambassadorships are typically reserved for individuals of exceptional achievement, impeccable character, and usually a close relationship to the President.  They are quite literally the face of the President and the United States in a foreign country.  Obama’s forced appointment of Aponte does nothing for her already questionable credentials, but it does say volumes about the real motivation, loyalties, and agenda of this President.