As Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, withdrew after eight days amid allegations of sexual misconduct and more, and as Trump’s new pick, Pam Bondi, faced scrutiny of her own, a leading Republican strategist rebuked the president-elect for bringing “chaos” back to Washington.
“Inadequate vetting, impatience, disregard for qualifications and a thirst for revenge have created chaos and controversy for Mr Trump before he’s even in office,” said Karl Rove, once known as George W Bush’s “Brain”, in the Wall Street Journal.
“The price for all this will be missed opportunities to shore up popular support for the incoming president. But at least it’ll make great TV.”
Gaetz, 42 and a far-right Florida congressman, denied wrongdoing but lost Senate support amid sensation over an unpublished House ethics committee report concerning allegations of “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shar[ing] inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misus[ing] state identification records, convert[ing] campaign funds to personal use, and/or accept[ing] a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.”
Gaetz was torpedoed by the Republican US senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and senator-elect John Curtis of Utah, who had indicated a lack of support for the former representative’s congressional confirmation. Bondi, 59 and a former attorney general of Florida, seemed more likely to earn support.
Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist turned critic of the president-elect, Trump, told CNN Bondi was “a mainstream Republican who turned Maga”, adding: “I will tell you, she is not an ogre. She is not a jerk.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters that Bondi was a “grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat-trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick”, adding: “She will be confirmed quickly because she deserves to be confirmed quickly.”
Bondi has strong, longtime links to Trump. Part of his defense team in his first impeachment, for trying to extort political dirt from Ukraine, she holds a position at the hard-right America First Policy Institute, set up by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller.
Democrats look less favorably on Bondi’s lobbying work for Qatar, her support for Trump’s lie that his defeat in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud, and a Trump-linked scandal from 2013.
As Florida attorney general, Bondi had said she was considering joining a lawsuit brought by students cheated by Trump University, a short-lived, fraudulent for-profit past venture of the president-elect’s that was shut down. Four days later, Bondi received a $25,000 donation from a Trump non-profit. Bondi never joined the lawsuit. She and Trump denied wrongdoing but Trump paid a $2,500 fine for violating federal tax laws.
Other Trump picks face continued uncertainty, not least Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host nominated for secretary of defense. Widely seen as unqualified, war veteran Hegseth is the subject of a released police report about an alleged sexual assault in California in 2017.
On Thursday, Hegseth said: “As far as the media is concerned, the matter was fully investigated and I was fully cleared.”
The Washington Post reported that Republican senators broadly saw Hegseth as a good choice alongside more mainstream selections for other cabinet positions,including Marco Rubio, the Florida senator nominated for secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the Florida congressman picked for national security adviser.
Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator, told the Post: “We live in an age that everybody’s past is exposed, regardless of what their circumstances are, and people draw an opinion before they have time to actually know the whole truth. The good thing is, there’s actually a full report, and you guys can read it for yourself. I don’t think there’s any way in the world you can say that this is a sexual assault.”
But Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, of the armed services committee, told NBC the police report was “a pretty big problem, given that we have … a sexual assault problem in our military. You know, this is why you have background checks. This is why you have hearings. This is why you have to go through the scrutiny. I’m not going to prejudge him, but, yeah, it’s a pretty concerning accusation.”
Questions also swirl about the vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr, picked for secretary of health. An allegation of sexual misconduct towards a babysitter has resurfaced. Kennedy has said he does not remember but also apologized. CNN, meanwhile, unearthed 2016 comments in which Kennedy previously compared Trump to Hitler and praised descriptions of his supporters as Nazis.
Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman nominated for director of national intelligence, is reviled on the left for her positions on Russia, Ukraine and Syria, and distrusted on the right for support for the Iran nuclear deal and opposition to trade wars with China.
And Linda McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment impresario picked to be education secretary – a department Trump wants to scrap – is accused in a lawsuit of failing to stop an employee sexually abusing children. McMahon has not commented.
Away from Trump’s nascent cabinet, the Georgia congresswoman and far-right conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene was picked to lead a House subcommittee linked to a newly conceived body, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. This is not an official government department and details are vague.It has been proposed by Trump as a mission for the unelected tech mogul Elon Musk, meant to slash trillions off the federal budget, for which project he has been paired with Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Greene promised to fire “bureaucrats” deemed underperforming or surplus to requirements.
