By COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — While Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from the nomination process for attorney general, President-elect Donald Trump has picked several other people for his Cabinet and key staff positions who have been accused of some form of sexual misconduct.
Trump himself has long been accused of abusing or mistreating women and once was caught bragging about grabbing women by the genitals. He was found liable by a New York City jury for sexual abuse and defamation and eventually ordered to pay the woman, E. Jean Carroll, $83 million in damages.
Taken together, there are a striking number of incidents in which potential high-ranking government officials in Trump’s second administration face allegations of sexual abuse. Trump and all of his picks for government have denied the claims against them, with some of the people accused arguing the cases are driven by politics.
Here’s a look at what’s known about the cases:
President-elect Donald Trump
Jurors in New York last year found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, an advice columnist, in 1996.
The verdict was split: Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped, finding Trump responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. Jurors also found Trump liable for defaming Carroll over her allegations. Trump did not attend the civil trial and was absent when the verdict was read.
Carroll was one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. She went public in a 2019 memoir with her allegation that the Republican raped her in the dressing room of a posh Manhattan department store.
Trump denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and did not know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented “a fraudulent and false story” to sell a memoir. He has similarly denied claims by other women.
Pete Hegseth, nominee for secretary of defense
A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public this week.
Hegseth told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.
News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.
Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said in a statement that the police report confirms “what I have said all along that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed.”
Parlatore said a payment was made to the woman as part of a confidential settlement a few years after the police investigation because Hegseth was concerned that she was prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in him being fired from Fox News, where he was a popular host. Parlatore would not reveal the amount of the payment.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nominee for secretary of health and human services
A woman who babysat for Kennedy and his second wife told Vanity Fair magazine that he groped her in the late 1990s, when she was 23. Kennedy did not deny the allegation, telling a podcast: “I had a very, very rambunctious youth.” He texted the woman an apology after the story was published.
According to an interview the woman gave this week with USA Today, she said she was babysitting for his children at Kennedy’s home in Mount Kisco, New York. She said that the assault happened soon after she began working there. During a kitchen table meeting with Kennedy and another person, she said she felt him rubbing her leg under the table.
She told the newspaper that another time, Kennedy, then 46, asked her to rub lotion on him when he was shirtless and she obliged because she wanted to get it over with. And he grabbed her in a kitchen pantry and groped her, blocking her exit. She stayed on the job for a few more months before leaving.
Linda McMahon, nominee for secretary of education
A lawsuit filed last month alleges that McMahon knowingly enabled sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment employee as early as the 1980s. She denies the allegations.
The suit was filed in October in Maryland, where a recent law change eliminated the state’s statute of limitations for child sex abuse claims, opening the doors for victims to sue regardless of their age or how much time has passed.
The complaint alleges that Melvin Phillips, who died in 2012, would target young men from disadvantaged backgrounds and hire them as “ring boys” to help with the preparations for wrestling matches. Phillips would then assault them in his dressing room, hotels and even in the wrestlers’ locker room, according to the complaint, which was filed on behalf of five men.
The abuse detailed in the lawsuit occurred over several years during Phillips’ long tenure with the organization spanning from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Because of his death, Phillips is not among the named defendants.
Instead, the complaint targets WWE founders Linda McMahon and her husband Vince, who grew the organization into the powerhouse it is today. The couple was well aware of Phillips’ brazen misconduct but did little to stop him, according to the complaint.
“This civil lawsuit based upon thirty-plus year-old allegations is filled with scurrilous lies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations regarding Linda McMahon,” said Laura Brevetti, Linda McMahon’s lawyer, in a statement. “The matter at the time was investigated by company attorneys and the FBI, which found no grounds to continue the investigation. Ms. McMahon will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and without doubt ultimately succeed.”
Brevetti confirmed Linda and Vince McMahon are separated.
Elon Musk, Trump’s choice to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency
Tesla and SpaceXCEO Elon Musk was accused of sexual misconduct by a flight attendant contracted by SpaceX who worked on his private jet in 2016. He denied the claim.
A 2022 report by Business Insider said SpaceX paid the woman $250,000 in severance in 2018 in exchange for her agreeing not to file a lawsuit over her claim.
The Business Insider report was based on an account by the flight attendant’s friend, who said the flight attendant told her about the incident shortly after it happened. The report also said the flight attendant was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prohibits her from discussing the payment or anything else about Musk and SpaceX.
SpaceX didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday.
Musk responded to the allegations on Twitter, which he was in the process of buying at the time they surfaced.
“And, for the record, those wild accusations are utterly untrue,” he wrote in response to one user who tweeted in support of him.
He replied to another: “In my 30 year career, including the entire MeToo era, there’s nothing to report, but, as soon as I say I intend to restore free speech to Twitter & vote Republican, suddenly there is …”
Matt Gaetz, who withdrew as Trump’s choice for attorney general
The former Florida congressman was embroiled in a sex trafficking investigation by the Justice Department he had been tapped to lead. He also was under scrutiny by the House Ethics Committee over allegations including sexual misconduct — until he resigned from Congress this week. He then withdrew his name for consideration.
Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and said last year that the Justice Department’s investigation into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls had ended with no federal charges against him.
Federal investigators scrutinized a trip that Gaetz took to the Bahamas with a group of women and a doctor who donated to his campaign, and whether the women were paid or received gifts to have sex with the men, according to people familiar with the matter who were not allowed to publicly discuss the investigation.
Two women House investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex and one of the women testified she saw him having sex with a 17-year-old, according to an attorney for the women.
The committee began its review of Gaetz in April 2021, deferred its work in response to a Justice Department request, and renewed its work shortly after Gaetz announced that the Justice Department had ended a sex trafficking investigation.
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
