Two of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s key nominations – Fox Information host Pete Hegseth for protection secretary and former lawmaker Matt Gaetz as legal professional basic — have change into embroiled in {sex} controversies that might threaten their Senate confirmations to serve in Trump’s Cupboard.
Hegseth, 44, paid an undisclosed quantity to a girl who accused him of sexual assault in 2017 to avert the specter of what he considered as a baseless declare turning into public, his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, instructed U.S. information media this weekend.
Gaetz, 42, resigned abruptly final week from the Home of Representatives close to the top of his fourth two-year time period, simply days earlier than the Home Ethics Committee was nearing conclusion of an investigation into whether or not he had had {sex} with a 17-year-old lady and engaged in illicit drug use. Some lawmakers have described Gaetz exhibiting nude cellphone footage of his sexual conquests within the Home chamber.
Gaetz has denied the allegations and federal authorities had earlier this 12 months determined to not carry charges.
FILE – Pete Hegseth arrives at Trump Tower for a gathering with President-elect Donald Trump in New York, on Nov. 29, 2016.
Hegseth’s lawyer, Parlatore, described Hegseth’s lodge sexual encounter with the girl after a Republican ladies’s occasion in Monterey, California, in 2017 as consensual. Native police, after an investigation, didn’t file any charges.
Parlatore instructed The Washington Publish that Hegseth settled the girl’s declare a number of years later as a result of he believed the submitting of her threatened lawsuit “would result in his immediate termination from Fox,” the place he was the favored host of a weekend speak present.
“He was falsely accused, and my place is that he was the sufferer of blackmail,” Parlatore instructed The Related Press, calling it a case of “profitable extortion.” The lady’s identify has not been made public, and U.S. information media don’t normally disclose the names of alleged sexual assault victims with out their consent.
Parlatore’s statements to information shops got here after a girl who stated she is a good friend of the accuser despatched an in depth memo to the Trump transition a number of days in the past detailing the Hegseth incident together with his accuser. The accuser alleged that Hegseth had raped her after ingesting at a lodge bar.
Trump to date has stood by Hegseth, an unconventional choice because the Pentagon chief.
Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have raised considerations about Hegseth’s lack of a managerial background, both on the Protection Division or at a enterprise. The Pentagon chief would oversee greater than 2 million U.S. troops and a civilian work drive of almost 800,000 individuals.
As well as, some critics have raised considerations about a big tattoo on Hegseth’s higher proper chest, which he characterizes as a Christian image, a “Jerusalem cross,” however what his critics say is a white nationalist image. Hegseth instructed one interviewer that he was eliminated by superiors from a Nationwide Guard element dealing with safety for President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 for worry that he was “an extremist” due to the tattoo.
When the allegations in opposition to Hegseth first emerged, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung contended that Hegseth “has vigorously denied any and all accusations. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”
FILE – Then-U.S. Consultant Matt Gaetz speaks at Trump marketing campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada, Oct. 31, 2024.
Though voters in his Florida district had simply reelected him to a fifth time period, Gaetz resigned from his workplace Wednesday, ending the investigation.
A number of U.S. senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, are in search of entry to the Home Ethics Committee findings within the Gaetz investigation as they perform their constitutionally mandated “advice and consent” function in reviewing Cupboard nominees made by an incoming president.
Home Speaker Mike Johnson, the chief of the slender Republican majority within the chamber, is balking on the launch of what he instructed CNN’s “State of the Union” present was a report in “rough draft form.”
Johnson contended that no ethics report must be made public as a result of Gaetz is not a member of Congress, though there have been situations the place that has occurred previously.
He stated senators reviewing the Gaetz nomination because the nation’s high regulation enforcement official will “have a vigorous review and vetting process” however that they didn’t must see the Home Ethics Committee’s report. Some senators have instructed they might transfer to subpoena it if it isn’t turned over to them voluntarily.
Trump has additionally stood by Gaetz’s nomination, however the president-elect additionally has sought – with little success to date – to get the Senate, in Republican management come January when he takes workplace, to comply with recess at occasions so he can identify and set up his Cupboard members with out the necessity for contentious and time-consuming affirmation hearings.
Additionally Sunday, Trump named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Fee, as the brand new chairman of the company.
The FCC is an impartial company that’s overseen by Congress, and tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband.
Carr is a longtime member of the fee and served beforehand because the FCC’s basic counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate thrice and was nominated by each Trump and President Joe Biden to the fee.
Some data for this report was supplied by The Related Press and Agence France-Presse.
