Kathy Kraninger, the White House budget official nominated to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, spent her confirmation hearing Thursday dodging questions about her role in the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies and disaster relief for Puerto Rico, delivering evasive answers that one Democratic senator described as “maddening.”

In a nearly three-hour hearing, Kraninger rankled Senate Democrats as they probed her involvement in the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. At one point, Kraninger stated she had “no role in setting the zero-tolerance policies.” But when senators inquired about advice she gave as the administration carried out those policies, she repeatedly cited the deliberative process privilege as preventing her from discussing her work.