The #MeToo Cabinet
Matt Gaetz’s nomination to serve as attorney general lasted just more than a week. For Donald Trump to have selected him in the first place was shocking, not only because of Gaetz’s total lack of law-enforcement experience but also because, until recently, he had been under investigation for sex trafficking by the same department that he was now being tapped to lead. By yesterday, it had become apparent that these allegations were too serious for his nomination to move forward, and he announced that he had withdrawn from consideration. It may be, according to The New York Times, “the earliest such failed cabinet pick in modern history.”
One can imagine the president-elect’s team breathing a sigh of relief at dodging a confirmation hearing likely focused on such a toxic sex-abuse scandal. But Gaetz was not the only troubled nominee. Of the spree of selections that Trump has so far unveiled for his incoming Cabinet, two others—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth—have been accused of sexual harassment or assault, and another—Linda McMahon—has been named in a lawsuit alleging that she enabled sexual abuse. (All, including Gaetz, have denied the allegations.)
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, for one Cabinet nominee to be accused of sexual impropriety may be regarded as misfortune. For two Cabinet nominees to be thus accused looks like carelessness. For four—well, that moves beyond carelessness into outright malice.
[Jonathan Chait: Donald Trump’s most dangerous cabinet pick]
The existence of allegations against Gaetz was not a secret. Last year, the Justice Department quietly wrapped up an investigation into whether the then-representative had broken federal sex-trafficking laws by paying women—including, reportedly, a 17-year-old girl—for sex. That probe did not result in any charges, but the House Ethics Committee has been working to compile its own report on Gaetz’s conduct; the committee has so far declined to make the report public, but details from it began dribbling out to the press following Gaetz’s nomination. A document published by The New York Times, which the paper reports was produced by the Justice Department and provided to the committee, maps a spiderweb of Venmo payments—some in the thousands of dollars—connecting Gaetz, male associates, and a network of women.
Also not secret were the allegations against Kennedy, Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services, who was accused this past summer of allegedly groping his children’s young nanny in 1999, and Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for secretary of education, who was named in a lawsuit filed last month as allegedly enabling the sexual abuse of young teenagers during her time as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Most disturbing, however, may be the case of the Fox News host Hegseth, named by Trump as the incoming secretary of defense despite having been identified as unqualified for far more junior positions during Trump’s 2016 campaign. After Trump selected Hegseth last week, The Washington Post reported on the existence of a legal settlement over a 2017 rape allegation against the nominee.
The underlying police report, published by Mediaite, makes for a grim read. Hegseth’s accuser describes speaking with him at a bar during a conference held by the California Federation of Republican Women; according to a memo to the Trump transition team reported on by The Washington Post, her husband and young children were staying with her at the same hotel. Somehow—she did not remember how—she ended up in an “unknown room” with Hegseth, who, she told police, blocked her from leaving. Hegseth agreed that the two had had sex, but he told police that the interaction had been consensual. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Trump transition team was “blindsided” by the allegations.
In a previous political era, a president-elect might have rushed to avoid association with this kind of behavior. But this is Trump, who has himself been accused by 27 women of sexual misconduct. In May 2023, he was held liable in civil court for sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll. (He has denied all accusations.) This past spring, a New York jury found him guilty of orchestrating an illegal hush-money scheme shadowed by uneasy dynamics of sexual power and consent. As the 2024 campaign wore on, Trump and his vice-presidential pick, Senator J. D. Vance, leaned on ever more explicit misogyny as a campaign strategy, courting young men while attacking single and childless women. On Election Night, the far-right influencer Nick Fuentes went viral with an X post reading “Your body, my choice. Forever.”
[David A. Graham: Trump 2.0 is already stooping lower]
Allegations of violence and impropriety in Trump’s Cabinet, too, are nothing new: In 2017, Andrew Puzder, his pick to lead the Department of Labor, backed out of consideration after accusations surfaced of past domestic abuse. Over the course of a single week in February 2018, two of Trump’s top aides resigned after disturbing allegations of physical abuse surfaced against them from their respective ex-wives. (Each of these three men denied the allegations against him; Puzder’s ex-wife later said she regretted the allegations in a letter to senators regarding her former husband’s confirmation.) And, of course, there was the bitter confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite credible sexual-assault allegations against him.
Still, the choice to begin a new administration with this particular slate of picks represents a remarkable commitment to moral ugliness. It’s as if Trump looked back at the Kavanaugh confirmation and viewed it not as regrettable, but as a model for what to do next. Gaetz will not get his hearing, but the others might. And if there’s something Trump loves, it’s watching television.