Three of President-elect Donald Trump’s high-profile picks to join his Cabinet have faced serious allegations of sexual impropriety, complicating the calculus for Republican senators already weighing their professional qualifications as they decide whether to go along with their party leader on key government posts.
His choice for attorney general, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is accused of having sex with a 17-year-old and paying two other women for sex. Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was accused of sexual assault. And his selection for health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was accused this summer of groping a former family babysitter.
Gaetz and Hegseth have denied the allegations. Kennedy responded to the allegation against him over the summer by saying: “I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.” NBC News reported that he apologized to the woman over text messages this year.
Trump himself has faced various sexual misconduct allegations, which he has denied, though he was found liable last year for sexual abuse in a civil trial over an alleged incident in the 1990s that he also denies. Now, after having won the presidency again, he’s spending early political capital to confirm appointees who have faced sexual misconduct allegations of their own.
“I do think it’s smart politics for the president to pick a fight with Congress — he is a change agent that people sent to disrupt, and there are few institutions people dislike more than Congress. But he undercuts that message when he wants to have a fight over Matt Gaetz,” said Marc Short, an NBC News contributor who was former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff.
“From the last couple of decades we’ve gone from not disclosing payments for nannies as being disqualifying to now, I just think the people around the president know he wants to see them fight through bad news cycles,” Short added.
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The allegations against Trump’s picks
Politics
Gaetz’s years of controversies have been thrust back into the spotlight now that he’s up for a Cabinet post. While one of Gaetz’s former associates pleaded guilty to charges including sex trafficking of a minor, the Justice Department ended its sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz, who resigned from Congress after Trump selected him, and didn’t charge him with any crimes. Meanwhile, a House Ethics Committee investigation had been ongoing before he resigned.
Some details from that investigation have become public — on Monday, a lawyer representing two women who testified in front of the Ethics Committee told NBC News that Gaetz paid them for sex on several occasions, including at a small, invitation-only party in Florida. The lawyer also added that one woman saw Gaetz having sex with her 17-year-old friend but added that she believed Gaetz didn’t realize she was a minor and that he ended their “sexual relationship” until she became a legal adult.
Hegseth has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017, an allegation he denied through a lawyer who said that the encounter was consensual and that the two entered into a “civil confidential settlement agreement [even as Hegseth] maintains his innocence.”
NBC News hasn’t independently reviewed a memo that The Washington Post reported was sent to the Trump transition team by a friend of the accuser. Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney, confirmed it was related to the encounter.
And this year, Vanity Fair published a lengthy profile of Kennedy that included a conversation with one of his family’s former nannies, who said he groped her. Asked about the allegation on a podcast this summer, Kennedy responded by brushing it aside, saying: “I am not a church boy.”
Short noted the difficult political cross-pressures that Republican senators will face ahead of, in particular, the Gaetz confirmation vote. While some GOP senators have agreed they want to see the House Ethics Committee’s report on Gaetz, none have ruled out voting for him.
Republican senators up for re-election in 2026 “are put in a really tough spot, because if they oppose Trump’s nominee, the concern is that Trump will help recruit a primary opponent. But if they support somebody like Matt Gaetz, you’re all but guaranteeing a more difficult general election. You’re in a catch-22,” Short said.
As Trump’s picks face scrutiny, multiple Cabinet hopefuls in the last few decades have had to step aside over accusations they hired undocumented household workers — including several during Bill Clinton’s and George H.W. Bush’s administrations, although nominees during President Barack Obama’s tenure and Trump’s first term were, in some cases, able to get through. Others have had issues with their finances, as well as accusations of personal or professional misconduct.
Trump’s past picks haven’t been immune, either.
In 2017, Andy Puzder, Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, withdrew from his confirmation battle amid scrutiny of his business record, concerns he hired an undocumented household employee and the emergence of video of his ex-wife accusing him of domestic abuse. Puzder said he was unaware the employee was an undocumented immigrant, and a spokesperson told Politico at the time that his ex-wife’s comments were “retracted 30-year-old allegations.”
In 2018, Trump acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan withdrew from consideration to lead the Pentagon in a permanent capacity after The Post reported on domestic violence incidents involving members of his family. (Shanahan claimed the reporting “painted an incomplete and therefore misleading” picture of the incidents.)
Also that year, Dr. Ronny Jackson (then the White House physician, who later became a member of Congress) withdrew his name from consideration to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs amid allegations of professional impropriety. (Jackson called the allegations “completely false and fabricated.”)
And at the end of 2018, Trump made a direct appeal to young men in trying to discredit a sexual assault allegation raised against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who denied the allegation. Kavanaugh was confirmed.
“It’s a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of,” Trump told reporters.
“You can be somebody that was perfect your entire life, and somebody could accuse you of something,” he said.
Trump sticking with his choices
Now, team Trump is standing by its picks and picking up its efforts on Capitol Hill ahead of next year’s confirmation hearings.
A transition official told NBC News that when Trump initially called to inform Gaetz of his plan to nominate him for attorney general, Gaetz told Trump, “This whole thing is going to be an uphill battle.” The official added that Trump replied that it was a battle he wanted to fight and said Trump has been making calls to GOP senators himself.
Addressing the potential difficulty of getting some of Trump’s controversial picks confirmed, another transition official said: “The president wants these nominees in his administration, and it is our job to make that happen,” adding that while “we know this will be hard, we just won an unprecedented election” and that Trump “wants this done, and we will get it done.”
Trump briefly told reporters Wednesday he isn’t reconsidering Gaetz’s nomination. And Vice President-elect JD Vance hit Capitol Hill this week to arrange meetings for key GOP senators with Gaetz and Hegseth, a source familiar with the plans said.
Asked about both the substance of the allegations against Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy and whether there are concerns that could complicate their confirmations, Karoline Leavitt, a Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman who is the incoming White House press secretary, said in a statement that Trump’s election was a “resounding mandate from the American people to change the status quo in Washington. That’s why he has chosen brilliant and highly-respected outsiders to serve in his administration.”
“He will continue to stand behind them as they fight against all those who seek to derail the MAGA agenda,” Leavitt added.
Jake Traylor, Garrett Haake, Hallie Jackson, Alex Tabet and Olympia Sonnier contributed.
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