Several of US President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees are facing intense scrutiny, including allegations of misconduct.
His pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denies sexual assault allegations, and potential attorney general Matt Gaetz is at the center of an ethics investigation.
Trump’s nominee for Health Secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is facing heavy criticism for his vaccine skepticism.
Trump will need the U.S. Senate to confirm these nominees when he takes office in January, and although the Senate will be controlled by his fellow Republicans, his cabinet nominees he will face harsh criticism in bipartisan hearings.
On Friday, police said Hegseth, the Pentagon nominee, was under investigation for alleged sexual assault in California in 2017.
Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has never been arrested and denies wrongdoing.
“Mr. Hegseth has strongly denied all allegations and no charges have been filed,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said.
Meanwhile, the BBC’s US partner CBS reported that Hegseth had been considered a potential “internal threat” by fellow soldiers, who thought he had supremacist tattoos white skin.
Hegseth denies any ties to extremist groups.
A former member of the Minnesota National Guard, he has a tattoo on his bicep that reads “Deus Vult,” a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it,” a call to rally united Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.
“I looked it up and found that tattoo has ties to extremist groups,” retired Sergeant DeRicko Gaither told CBS. He said he had flagged the leader’s friendship.
US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance rushed to defend Hegseth, saying the Latin phrase is nothing more than a Christian motto. He accused the Associated Press, which first reported on the tattoo, of “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry.”
Hegseth was removed from his position as an officer in Washington DC during President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. In a book published earlier this year, he said he was turned down for duty because of his tattoos yours.
Meanwhile, Trump’s pick to be attorney general, Matt Gaetz, is facing allegations of misconduct when he was a congressman.
He resigned from his seat in the US House of Representatives in Florida on Thursday just hours after being nominated by Trump to lead the US Department of Justice.
His departure prevented the release of a congressional report into allegations of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use and misuse of campaign funds.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, asked Friday that the report remain confidential because Gaetz is no longer a member of the body — even as there were bipartisan demands for it to be shared. as part of his consideration for the role of top prosecutor in the US. .
Hours later, attorneys for the two women who provided testimony to the House Ethics Committee about Gaetz called on lawmakers to release the panel’s report.
Attorney Joe Leppard told CBS that one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with an underage girl in Florida in 2017. Mr. Leppard called on lawmakers to publicize released the report of the House Ethics Committee.
However, the justice department last year investigated the allegations and declined to charge Gaetz.
He previously denied allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old as an adult at a party in Orlando.
The 42-year-old Florida lawmaker wrote Friday on X that “lies have been weaponized to try to destroy me.”
Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s nominee to head the US Department of Health and Human Services, is meanwhile facing backlash for his vaccine skepticism.
Shares of vaccine makers and healthcare companies around the world fell sharply on Friday, as investors reacted to the nomination of a campaigner who vowed to crack down on “Big Pharma ”.
The head of the American Public Health Association, which has 25,000 members of medical professionals, told the BBC that Kennedy’s criticism of vaccination “has caused huge health damage in the country “.
George C Benjamin added that Kennedy was “absolutely the wrong person in that regard”.
Trump himself has so far not directly addressed criticism of his choices.
The president-elect is still recruiting for his incoming administration, with positions such as FBI director and treasury secretary yet to be named.
