The Memo: Gaetz and Hegseth controversies could trickle down to Trump

Allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct are complicating the paths of two of President-elect Trump’s most important nominees.

In the process, they threaten to put a new spotlight on Trump’s record with women.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) left Congress upon being nominated by Trump to serve as attorney general last week. His resignation ended an investigation into him by the House Ethics Committee, which was looking into sexual allegations, among others. That panel has no jurisdiction once a member leaves office. 

A previous criminal probe resulted in no charges against Gaetz.

However, the debate over whether the Ethics Committee’s report will be released has roiled the Capitol. Washington being Washington, many insiders expect the report to leak even if no official release is forthcoming.

Separately, Trump’s nominee to be secretary of Defense, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, is under new scrutiny after it emerged that he paid a woman who had accused him of sexual assault as part of a nondisclosure agreement.

Both Gaetz and Hegseth vigorously deny any wrongdoing. 

An attorney for Hegseth told The Washington Post, which broke the story of his nondisclosure agreement, the complainant was “the aggressor in initiating sexual activity” during their 2017 encounter. 

To be sure, it is possible Gaetz and Hegseth get confirmed anyway — though several GOP senators have expressed misgivings about the former Florida congressman in particular.

There is no sign, at least so far, that Trump is having second thoughts. 

The president-elect’s communications director, Steven Cheung, told The New York Times on Sunday that Hegseth had “vigorously denied any and all accusations” and that the Trump transition team “look forward to his confirmation.”

An unnamed source told CNN, in relation to Gaetz, that Trump was “not going to back off. He’s all in.”

But that kind of defiance could pose some dangers to the president-elect, given his history.

Trump was held liable for the sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial last year. Carroll has alleged Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Trump was not held liable for rape at the trial.

Then there is Trump’s broader history, which includes hush money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had a sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006.

Daniels acknowledges the encounter was consensual. But more than 20 women have accused Trump of inappropriate sexual conduct, albeit of varying degrees of severity.

Trump denies wrongdoing in all those cases and generally tends to portray the women involved as motivated by a desire for fame or money.

Democrats look at his picks of figures like Gaetz and Hegseth with disdain.

“Isn’t the expression that the fish rots from the head?” asked Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky. “It’s not a surprise that an administration helmed by an adjudicated sexual predator would have no problem with high-level Cabinet officials who also have issues around sexual misconduct.”

Roginsky, a prominent advocate for women who have been sexually harassed in the workplace, added, “For those of us who have been working for years around these issues, it is dispiriting to say the least. We just have to work all the harder.”

Conservative commentators see it very differently, of course. 

Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham last week — before the issue of Hegseth’s nondisclosure agreement became public — that Hegseth would be “easily confirmed.”

“I dare any Republican senator to vote against him,” Chaffetz added. “That is not in their best interest.” 

Still, all of this comes on top of long-standing challenges for Trump and his party when it comes to female voters.

While Trump did better with women in this month’s election than many polls predicted — and shaved some points off the Democratic advantage with female voters compared to 2020 — women still lean away from him and his party.

Among all female voters, Vice President Harris had an 8-point advantage, according to exit polls. Harris won 53 percent of women and Trump 45 percent.

The differential was sharper among young women and unmarried women. 

Trump lost female voters younger than 30 by 24 points and lost unmarried women by 21 points. While the president-elect made progress with male voters of color, this was far less true for their female counterparts. Ninety-one percent of Black women voted for Harris, as did 60 percent of Latinas — figures that are broadly in line with recent history.

When it comes to confirmation proceedings in the Senate, two female GOP figures, Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) are among the most likely to vote against Trump’s more controversial nominees. 

Soon after Gaetz was announced as Trump’s pick to head the Department of Justice, Murkowski told reporters he was not “a serious nomination for attorney general,” while Collins declared herself “shocked” by the decision to push him forward.

There was more trouble for Trump’s nominee for attorney general on Monday, when a Florida attorney told ABC News two of his clients had testified to the House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had paid them for sex. 

Both those clients were adults at the time, but one of them, according to the attorney, also testified she had seen Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old. 

Regarding those allegations, a Trump transition spokesperson told ABC, "Matt Gaetz will be the next attorney general. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system.”

That’s the case for now. But Trump could incur some damage — and might even consider cutting his losses — if more allegations emerge.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.