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In Trump’s Washington, sexual misconduct allegations may no longer be disqualifying

At least three of Donald Trump’s nominees will test whether his ability to withstand sexual misconduct allegations will transfer to his Cabinet picks.

The nominations of Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary and Robert Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services secretary may reveal whether the shield that surrounds Trump will transfer to his nominees — and ultimately his Cabinet.

All three have faced accusations of sexual misconduct but senators appear to be publicly willing, for now at least, to defer to Trump after his resounding victory on Nov. 5.

“I just don't think you can deal with allegations in the past as though they're fact,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who added that Trump, as a “victim of lawfare” is acutely aware of unjust prosecutions — and that Gaetz and the others haven’t been convicted of any crimes.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said he won’t judge any of the nominees on “rumor” and wants to hold hearings to vet Trump’s picks. Sen. James Lankford, from Oklahoma, said he expects lawmakers will “get everybody answering questions like we always do.”

Trump’s picks are also in a position familiar to him: as both the accused, and aggrieved. He has paid to cover up extramarital relationships with porn star Stormy Daniels, swimsuit model Karen McDougal and, just months earlier, was found liable by a federal jury in a civil trial of sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. Time and again, though, dating back to the October 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about groping women, Trump has largely evaded lasting consequences or long-term political damage.

“I support all of Trump's Cabinet picks. That's a whole part of the process — there'll be a Senate confirmation, public hearings, the DOJ,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said. “The DOJ decided not to pursue charges against our colleague. And so, there's the media — you guys want to make him guilty, hook line and sink or be judged during an execution of a guy who's never been charged with a crime.”

As much as Trump’s 2024 campaign was a cultural crusade against “wokeness” and DEI initiatives, it was also a defiant clap-back by men who powered to victory a former president who has himself been found liable for sexual abuse. The nominations of Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy speak to some men who have cast themselves as a generation aggrieved in the post-#MeToo era.

Trump’s own statement from the rally stage vowing to be a protector of women “whether women like it or not” epitomized, for Democrats, a growing disregard for the idea of consent, a statement Vice President Kamala Harris seized on as “offensive.” Following Trump’s victory, sexist posts surged on social media. Most notably, an X post by controversial white nationalist Nick Fuentes — “Your body, my choice. Forever.” he wrote in a repudiation of #MeToo politics — was reposted over 36,000 times and the phrase, picked up on by other accounts, was trending for days.

The president-elect’s own allies acknowledge that the current moment has been shaped by #MeToo, but in some of the exact opposite ways that movement could have imagined: The highly politicized nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the attendant allegations of sexual impropriety — have apparently numbed a vast swath of the nation.

“The president of the United States is elected by all Americans. The Senate should presumptively vote to confirm his qualified nominees unless they have disqualified themselves with misconduct. And after the Kavanaugh confirmation, the presumption of guilt is out the window,” said Mike Davis, the former GOP Senate aide who led Kavanaugh’s confirmation process and has been one of Trump’s kitchen cabinet legal advisers.

Now, a crop of Trump’s nominations are one early result of an election defined by a staggering gender gap, with men of all ages gravitating to the thrice-married former reality TV star who’s still awaiting sentencing to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to Daniels. That’s not to mention the ubiquitous presence of Elon Musk, who will not undergo Senate confirmation as a co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency but has wheedled his way into Trump’s inner circle, even as Musk has faced lawsuits from employees alleging he created a harassment-fueled work environment.

“We’re in a different era. Part of that is, we’ve seen behavior that has otherwise been disqualifying that hasn’t been,” said Douglas Heye, a former Bush administration official. “The Access Hollywood tape being a perfect example of it. And Bill Clinton being on the campaign trail so prominently. There was a time when Bill Clinton was sort of canceled, and that’s gone.”