Trump cabinet chooses to fight abuse allegations

Some of US President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees face heavy scrutiny, including allegations of abuse of power.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth denies the 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 vaccine skepticism.

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

On Friday, police said Pentagon nominee Hegseth was being investigated for alleged sexual assault in California in 2017.

Hegseth, a Fox News host and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was never arrested and denies his guilt.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Mr. Hegseth vehemently denied all allegations and no criminal charges were filed.”

Meanwhile, the BBC’s US partner CBS reported that Hegseth had once been flagged as a potential “insider threat” by other military personnel who thought he had a white supremacist tattoo.

Hegseth has denied any links 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” that was a rallying cry for Christian crusaders in the Middle Ages.

“I looked into it and the tattoo was linked to extremist groups,” retired Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither told CBS. He said he marked the body ink to the leadership.

US vice president-elect J.D. Vance rushed to Hegseth’s defense and said that the Latin phrase was nothing more than a Christian slogan. He accused the Associated Press, which first published the news about the tattoo, of “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry.”

Hegseth has been stopped from serving as an officer in Washington, D.C., during President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration. In a book published earlier this year, he said he was turned down for duty because of his tattoos.

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

He resigned his Florida seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, just hours after Trump nominated him to head the U.S. Department of Justice.

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

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday asked that the report remain secret because Gaetz is no longer a member of the organization; even despite bipartisan demands to share the report as part of a review of the attorney general’s role in the United States.

Hours later, an attorney for two women who testified about Gaetz to the House Ethics Committee called on lawmakers to release the panel’s report.

Attorney Joe Leppard told CBS that one of his clients witnessed Gaetz having sex with an underage girl in Florida in 2017. Mr Leppard called on MPs to publish the House Ethics Committee report.

But the justice department investigated the allegations last year and declined to file criminal charges against Gaetz.

He has previously denied allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old boy as an adult at a party in Orlando.