SINGAPORE — President Donald Trump has re-nominated Ms Kathleen Troia McFarland to be the next United States ambassador to Singapore, despite lawmakers putting her earlier nomination on hold following revelations from an ongoing probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mr Trump’s insistence on nominating Ms McFarland despite the US Senate’s questions about her will likely mean that the vacant post of the US ambassador to Singapore will be unfilled for months to come.

The White House resubmitted her nomination on Monday (Jan 08), alongside those for 75 other administrative nominations that require US Senate approval. Ms McFarland, a former top security aide in the Trump administration, was first nominated for the post in May last year.

She was initially expected to get the green light from the full Senate after its foreign relations committee approved her nomination in September. But it emerged in December that her nomination had stalled, amid concerns about her testimony to the US Congress over communications with Russia.

Ms McFarland had said in a written response to a question from Democratic Senator Cory Booker, a foreign relations committee member, that she was “not aware” of communications between Trump’s former national security adviser, Mr Michael Flynn and Mr Sergei Kislyak, when Mr Kislyak was Russia’s ambassador to the US.

However, the New York Times reported that it had obtained an email Ms McFarland sent on Dec 29, 2016, the day former President Barack Obama’s administration authorised new sanctions against Russia, saying Mr Flynn would talk to Mr Kislyak that evening.

Mr Flynn had pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russia, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors delving into the actions of Mr Trump’s inner circle before he took office.

Court papers also showed that senior Trump transition officials were aware of Mr Flynn’s outreach to Russian officials in the run up to Mr Trump’s inauguration.

While the transition officials were not named in the court papers, The Associated Press cited sources familiar to the case in identifying two of them as Mr Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, and Ms McFarland.

“Her nomination is frozen for a while until that gets worked out,” Republican Senator Bob Corker was quoted telling reporters in December last year.

Ms McFarland, a former national security analyst for the Fox News channel, was one of Mr Trump’s original hires after he was elected president on Nov 8.

She had previously served in the national security councils of the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, and worked at the Department of Defence.

The most recent US ambassador to Singapore, Mr Kirk Wagar, left the Republic about a year ago upon Mr Trump’s inauguration. Delays in the arrival or appointment of new foreign envoys are not uncommon, and are not expected to hamper official communication between the two countries.

But the long wait means Singapore is missing a significant conduit to the White House at a time of considerable uncertainty over US policies under the Trump administration.