Wednesday, Nov. 28, I had to set an alarm for 7 a.m. MST to be sure and be up in time to watch the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry entertain those watching the confirmation hearing for Dr. Mindy Brashears, President Trump’s nominee to be the next Undersecretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The committee cannot vote a candidate up or down the same day as the hearing, but Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., basically promised it would be a positive vote when the appropriate waiting period had passed.

Roberts also provided the entertainment I mentioned, and I personally think it really took away from what usually is a very serious and solemn hearing to confirm, in Roberts’ own words, “an extremely important position.”

You see, two other nominees for USDA positions also shared the desk with Brashears, one of them being Naomi Earp, Trump’s nominee for the position of Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the USDA.

Ms. Earp, in her opening comments, mentioned her very young niece was in the audience. Roberts followed up by inviting the niece to sit with the committee, occupying the vacant seat of a senator who felt the hearing was not important enough to even attend. And she was mentioned nearly every time another senator was given the opportunity to ask the candidates questions.

When the hearing was near its conclusion, Chairman Roberts asked the niece if she had anything to say, and she replied, “I think you all did a good job.”

I do not know if she meant the senators or the candidates.

Brashears was asked about the labeling and regulation of lab-grown meat and, as expected, about the recently released list of poultry plants failing the FSIS’s new performance standards for Salmonella in parts, not carcasses.

Senator Grassley did not even ask a question, just used his five minutes to give his views about the importance of “whistle blowers” and the failure of the administration’s appointees to answer questions from his office in a timely and complete fashion.

The Democrats on the committee seemed mostly interested in what Earp would do about the Forest Service’s alleged sexual discrimination and abuse issues.

A couple Dems did ask Brashears if she would be sensitive to the issue of small farmers not having access to slaughter facilities nearby.

No one raised the question of Brashear’s role in the ABC vs. BPI trial, nor did anyone ask her why she wanted to move her family to D.C. for what will likely be a very short, two-year stint as the Undersecretary for Food Safety.

If Brashears is confirmed by a vote of the Senate, and I have no reason to believe she will not be, the position of the Undersecretary for Food Safety will finally be filled more than five years after the last person, Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, left this “extremely important position."

What a crying shame.

But we did get to meet Earp’s niece up close and personal.

Brashears is moving down the slippery slope to D.C.

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