When he takes the oath of workplace in January, Donald J. Trump will make historical past as the primary court-adjudicated sexual abuser to imagine the presidency. But when he will get the staff of his alternative, he won’t be the one one within the room whose conduct has been known as into query.
Mr. Trump, who was discovered liable in a civil trial final 12 months of accosting a girl, has chosen a protection secretary, an lawyer common, a secretary of well being and human providers and an effectivity czar, all of whom have been accused of variations of sexual misconduct and, just like the president-elect, deny them.
The rise of the accused to positions of energy raises new questions on the way forward for the #MeToo motion that swept by way of the nation and upended societal expectations lately. The sort of accusations that took down titans of Hollywood, Wall Avenue, Silicon Valley, Washington, the information media, sports activities and state capitals have proved no impediment in Mr. Trump’s choice course of.
Slightly than be deterred by such allegations, Mr. Trump appears decided to pressure a battle over them. He knew that Matt Gaetz, the renegade Republican congressman, had been accused of all method of sordid conduct, together with {sex} with an underage lady, however tapped him to run the Justice Division anyway. He could not have recognized that Pete Hegseth, the Fox Information weekend host he named to preside over the Pentagon, had paid a girl who accused him of sexual assault, however has indicated that he’ll stand by him.
Likewise, Mr. Trump has expressed no concern about accusations that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his alternative for the well being division, groped a household babysitter, or that Elon Musk, tasked with reinventing authorities, created a sexually charged office that handled girls as objects. All of his nominees have denied intentional wrongdoing, and Mr. Trump, who has made a profession of denying wrongdoing himself, seems to take them at their phrase.
He nonetheless denies sexually assaulting the author E. Jean Carroll in a division retailer dressing room within the Nineties regardless that she has gained two civil court docket judgments towards him for $83.3 million. And he has mentioned that greater than two dozen different girls who’ve accused him of sexual misconduct had been all mendacity.
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