Nominations of Charlton Allen to be General Counsel, Federal Labor Relations Authority, John Walk to be USDA Inspector General, Thomas Bell to be HHS Inspector General

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
342 Dirksen

11/19/2025 at 10:00AM

Nomination hearing for:

  • Charlton Allen to be General Counsel, Federal Labor Relations Authority
  • John Walk to be Inspector General, U.S. Department of Agriculture
  • Thomas Bell to be Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Allen is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. He is the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc., editor of The American Salient, and the host of the Modern Federalist podcast.

Walk serves as Judicial Officer at the United States Department of Agriculture. He served as Associate Counsel to President Donald J. Trump at the White House Counsel’s Office from January 2017 until December 2020. At the White House, Walk advised the President and senior White House officials on the exercise of the President’s constitutional authority, regulatory matters, executive actions, and implementation of public policy. Prior to the White House, Walk served as an attorney at the Department of Homeland Security, providing advice on DHS operations and defending against federal litigation as agency counsel as an ally of Stephen Miller. Before entering the legal profession, Walk was a senior government relations advisor at an international law firm and served as a congressional staffer in the House of Representatives. Walk is the son-in-law of Jeff Sessions, married to Sessions’ daughter Ruth.

As Inspector General for Health and Human Services, Thomas March Bell will oversee fraud, waste and abuse audits of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which spend more than $1 trillion annually. Bell currently serves as general counsel for House Republicans and has worked for GOP politicians and congressional offices for decades. The president’s nomination of this anti-abortion extremist is a “brazenly political” one. Bell was ousted from Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality in 1997 after a state audit showed he improperly authorized a nearly $8,000 payment to the agency’s former spokesman. He was staff director for House Republicans’ 2016 investigation into Planned Parenthood. During the first Trump administration, Bell helped create the Conscience and Religious Freedom division within the HHS Office for Civil Rights. Bell held leadership positions in Gary Bauer and Pat Robinson’s presidential campaigns.