Republican senators are squirming over the rash of sexual misconduct allegations against President-elect Trump's Cabinet picks, which they fear will become a focal point of Senate confirmation hearings next year.
Senate Republicans expressed relief Thursday when former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) withdrew his name from consideration to serve as attorney general amid allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
But GOP lawmakers are already warning that Trump’s other controversial nominees, including Pete Hegseth, who has been tapped to head the Defense Department; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is slated to head the Department of Health and Human Services; and Linda McMahon, who would lead the Department of Education, will also face tough questions related to allegations of sexual misconduct or enabling sexual abuse.
Some Republican senators are privately hoping that other nominees will follow Gaetz and drop out if their confirmation proceedings would threaten to entangle the new administration in scandals during Trump’s first few months in office.
“That’s why the Constitution matters. It gives us the chance to advise and consent. We just need to make sure we do our jobs,” one Republican senator who requested anonymity said of the allegations.
“A president should have some level of deference to who he or she wants in positions that surround them but that doesn’t mean it’s a free card. It doesn’t mean there’s nothing we’re supposed to do,” the senator said.
“My expectation, not just my hope, is that some of these people may be weeded out in the process before they ever get to a hearing,” the lawmaker added, referring to Trump’s picks.
A second GOP senator who requested anonymity said that with Gaetz no longer under consideration for attorney general, colleagues will shift their focus to allegations facing other nominees, such as Hegseth and Kennedy.
“There are clear signals from my colleagues that there’s more trouble than just with Gaetz,” said the lawmaker.
The senator warned that heated public hearings in which senators from both parties grill nominees over sexual allegations would be a bad way to start Trump’s second term as president.
“It would be awful for the Senate and I don’t think it’s good for the country,” the lawmaker added.
The latest nominee to be rocked by an allegation of sexual misconduct is Hegseth, who was accused of locking a woman in his hotel room and assaulting her at a Republican women’s event in Monterey, Calif., according to a police report that gained widespread attention in the past week.
The woman, whose name has not been released, told medical personnel that a drug may have been slipped into her drink before she wound up in Hegseth’s room. She requested a sexual assault exam and the police collected her dress and underwear as evidence.
Hegseth, meeting with senators to build support for his nomination, told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday that “the matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared.”
Police forwarded their report of the incident to the Monterey County district attorney, who declined to filed charges, citing lack of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hegseth’s nomination is sure to face stiff scrutiny from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has made cracking down on sexual assault in the military one of her top priorities in the Senate.
Gillibrand told “Capital Tonight,” a Spectrum News program, that Hegseth “has some serious challenges in his record."
Asked about the allegations against Gaetz and Hegseth, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a key swing vote in the Senate, said “any allegation of drug use and sexual misconduct or sexual crimes are serious ones that the Senate is going to take a close look at.”
Collins said she was “glad” that Gaetz decided to withdraw his nomination.
Asked if she is concerned about the number of Trump nominees facing accusations of sexual misconduct, Collins said: “This is something that I’m sure will be explored at the hearings.”
“I do not know the nominees. I know that there have not been criminal charges brought so we’ll have to see,” she added.
Asked about the sexual assault allegation against Hegseth, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said “there’s a lot floating around out there.”
“We need to actually be able to visit with him face-to-face, and I know the committee will do a thorough vetting,” she said.
Ernst said an FBI background check of Hegseth would be “helpful.”
The Trump transition team has not yet signed a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department to allow the FBI to conduct background checks of nominees.
Kennedy, Trump’s pick to head the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, is being accused by a former live-in nanny of groping her when she was 23 years old.
Eliza Cooney told USA Today that Kennedy once appeared shirtless in her bedroom and asked her to rub lotion on him and on another occasion started groping her in a kitchen pantry, blocking her exit from the alcove.
A lawsuit filed against McMahon, Trump’s choice to head the Department of Education, accuses her of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children by an employee of World Wrestling Entertainment, the company she ran with her husband Vince McMahon.
The suit was filed recently in Baltimore County, Md., on behalf of five anonymous plaintiffs who say they were between the ages of 13 and 15 at the time of the alleged abuse.
The legal action accuses Vince and Linda McMahon, and World Wrestling Entertainment and its parent company, TKO Holdings, of allowing “open, rampant abuse” of ring boys who assisted ringside announcer Melvin Phillips Jr., who died in 2012.
Jessica Rosenberg, an attorney representing Vince McMahon, says the allegations are “false.”
The wave of sexual misconduct or abuse-related charges against Trump’s picks are giving ammunition to Democrats, who say the pattern of accusations reflects the president-elect’s own personal history of alleged sexual misconduct.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the charges against Hegseth “are concerning to say the least.”
“I’d say it starts at the top in terms of this kind of behavior,” she said. “That’s why the FBI investigation is very important.”
“I ask the two initial questions of every nominee and it has to do with whether they have ever engaged in this kind of behavior, sexual harassment, sexual assault,” Hirono said. “We’ll have to see how they respond."
She said the trend may be that “this is a president who doesn’t consider those kinds of behaviors to be concerning.”
Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
And another jury found Trump liable that same month for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her a $5 million judgment.
Trump has vigorously proclaimed his innocence in both cases and is appealing the verdicts in both cases.
