Trump Cabinet nominees are fighting claims and controversy of misconduct

Several of US President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks are under intense scrutiny, including claims of misconduct.

His chosen Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, denies a sexual assault allegation 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 severe criticism for his skepticism about vaccines.

Trump will need the U.S. Senate to confirm these nominees when he takes office in January, and while the chamber will be controlled by his fellow Republicans, his Cabinet nominees will face intense criticism in bipartisan hearings.

On Friday, police said Hegseth, the Pentagon nominee, had been investigated 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.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Mr. Hegseth has strongly denied all allegations and no charges have been filed.”

Meanwhile, CBS, the BBC’s US partner, reported that Hegseth had once been labeled a potential “insider threat” by fellow soldiers who believed he had a white supremacist tattoo.

Hegseth has denied any connection 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 battle cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.

Retired Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither told CBS: “I looked it up and that tattoo had ties to extremist groups.” He said he marked the body ink as leadership.

US Vice President JD Vance rushed to Hegseth’s defense, saying the Latin phrase is nothing more than a Christian motto. He accused the Associated Press, which first reported the tattoo story, of “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry.”

Hegseth was retired from serving as an officer in Washington DC during President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration. In a book published earlier this year, he said he was rejected for the position because of his tattoos.

Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, is fighting allegations of misconduct while he was a congressman.

He resigned from his seat in the US House of Representatives in Florida on Thursday, within hours of Trump nominating him to lead the US Justice Department.

His departure halted the release of a congressional report on allegations of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use and misuse of campaign funds.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, asked Friday that the report be kept secret because Gaetz is no longer a member of the body — even amid bipartisan demands to share it as part of his review of the role of top prosecutor in the US .

Hours later, an attorney for two women who gave testimony to the House Ethics Committee about Gaetz urged lawmakers to release the panel’s report.

The attorney, Joe Leppard, told CBS that one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with an underage girl in Florida in 2017. Mr. Leppard urged lawmakers to release the House Ethics Committee report.

However, the Justice Department investigated the allegations last year and declined to press charges against Gaetz.

He has previously denied claims that he had sex with a 17-year-old while he was an adult at a party in Orlando.

The 42-year-old Florida lawmaker wrote on X on Friday that “lies were used to destroy me.”

Robert F Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to head the US Department of Health and Human Services, is meanwhile facing backlash over his vaccine skepticism.

Shares of vaccine makers and healthcare companies around the world fell sharply on Friday as investors reacted to the appointment of a campaigner who vowed to crack down on ‘Big Pharma’.

The head of the American Public Health Association, which has 25,000 health workers, told the BBC that Kennedy’s criticism of vaccinations had “already caused great damage to the health of the country.”

George C. Benjamin added that Kennedy was “absolutely the wrong person for it.”

Trump himself has so far not responded directly to criticism of his choices.

The newly elected president is still hiring for his next administration, and positions such as FBI director and treasury secretary have yet to be named.