Is Anyone On Trump’s Team Actually Vetting His Nominees?

Donald Trump’s team apparently missed that Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s choice for secretary of defense, paid off a woman accusing him of sexual assault. 

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Monday that while vetting Hegseth, Trump’s staff missed the payoff because it was a “private settlement.” On Saturday, Hegseth’s lawyer confirmed the payoff after being contacted by The Washington Post. 

“They did do a vet, we are told,” Haberman said. “This did not show up, this issue, because it was a private settlement, according to the people who were briefed on what took place. Trump really likes Pete Hegseth. But this did introduce the thing Trump doesn’t like, which is an element of surprise and a negative headline.” 

The vetting by Trump’s team, however, is skipping FBI background checks, which have historically been a part of the presidential appointment process. Instead, Trump’s team is using private companies because they are trying to speed up the process and avoid revelations that could be used by their opponents.  

But avoiding a security process that has been used since the Eisenhower administration has backfired in the case of Hegseth, and has also likely kept any security issues from being revealed about Trump’s other choices, such as Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who has a controversial past. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also has a history of actions that call into question his ability to obtain a security clearance.   

Trump appears to be standing by his pick of Hegseth despite the sexual assault allegations, potentially setting up a showdown with Senate Republicans. His choice of attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has also faced opposition due to a House Ethics Committee investigation into the former congressman over allegations that he had trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 party. It appears that weeks after his election, Trump is already testing his limits as president. 

An anonymous hacker has obtained some very damning documents regarding Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, according to The New York Times.

The documents are from a file shared securely between lawyers whose clients have provided testimony that incriminates Gaetz.

As a representative, Gaetz was being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for allegations that he had trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl in 2017 at a sex party. Gaetz has vehemently denied these allegations, and even tried to nullify the House investigation by resigning from Congress last week. Since then, there has been much congressional debate over whether to release the Ethics report, with most Democrats urging its release and most Republicans preferring it stay under wraps. But now, a hacker has potentially blown past all of that.

The hacked file is said to hold 24 documents containing testimony by multiple people, including the victim, confirming Gaetz’s actions. The Times reports that the file was downloaded by an “Altam Beezley” on Monday at 1:23 p.m. The documents come from a civil suit filed by Gaetz’s friend Christopher Dorworth, who claims he was defamed by the victim after she accused him of hosting the sex party with Gaetz and Joel Greenberg, who is serving 11 years in prison for sex trafficking.

The hacked documents also include sworn testimony by a woman who said that she had sex at a party with Mr. Gaetz in 2017 when she was 17, and there’s testimony from another woman who says she saw it all happen. There is also sworn testimony from Dorworth and his wife, testimony from Matt Gaetz’s former campaign treasurer Michael Fischer, and time stamps of arrival times of all those who visited Dorworth’s home the night of the alleged sex party.

These materials are not yet available to the public. It is unclear who the hacker is and why they might have done this.

Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Republican billionaire Howard Lutnick to be secretary of commerce.

Trump announced in a statement posted on Truth Social that Lutnick, the CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, would “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of United States Trade Representative.”

Lutnick has been the co-chair of Trump’s transition team since August, and has expressed support for Trump’s ill-defined plan to impose broad tariffs on foreign producers, a scheme experts say would shock the U.S. economy and cause increases in consumer prices across the board. Even Lutnick himself has admitted Americans would bear the brunt of tariffs, but he still wants to impose them anyway.

In September, Lutnick told CNBC that “tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use—we need to protect the American worker.” Lutnick also gushed about tariffs at Trump’s fascistic rally in Madison Square Garden last month, claiming that America was better off 100 years ago, when it had “no income tax and all we had was tariffs.”

He made several other disturbing remarks during his appearance in New York City, suggesting that Trump’s critics ought to be charged with treason, and taking a bigoted swipe at Muslim voters. Lutnick has also claimed that vaccines have “not been proven,” making him the second openly anti-vaccine in Trump’s Cabinet after proposed DHS head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This story has been updated.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace is still trying desperately to get on television, and this time she’s resorted to transphobic attacks against another lawmaker.

Mace introduced a resolution Tuesday which would ban transgender women from using the women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol, just weeks after Sarah McBride became the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.

Rather than actually govern, Mace spends most of her time launching pathetic attempts to get as much media attention as possible by trying to “trigger” people, and her latest stunt is the most pathetic one yet.

“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. I mean, this is a biological man,” Mace told reporters on Monday. She added that her new colleague “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop.”

When asked if the resolution was a direct response to the people of Delaware democratically electing McBride into office, Mace replied, “That and more.”

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said that by electing Donald Trump to the White House, Americans had voiced their support for anti-trans bills, adding that she would support the resolution, and a similar bathroom ban in “all tax-payer funded facilities.” She said she normally uses the private bathroom in her office.

When asked specifically how lawmakers planned to monitor the biological sex of all women trying to enter restrooms in the U.S. Capitol, both Greene and Mace looked uncomfortable and didn’t answer the question.

McBride responded Tuesday to her colleagues’ hateful remarks.

“Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness,” McBride wrote in a post on X.

“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing,” McBride wrote. “We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.”

Mace took to X on Wednesday to fire off a slate of posts cheering herself on. “The radical Left is calling me a ‘threat.’ You’re damn right I am. I am a threat to anyone who wants to strip women and girls of their rights,” she wrote.

It’s clear that Fox News is not into Donald Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general—at all.

A segment of the show on Tuesday morning turned to why the former Florida representative  would be a disaster if he were to lead the Justice Department.

Fox News host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican representative, urged the president-elect to rethink his relationship to “lawfare” and the Justice Department.

“Do not use the justice system as a weapon. The message for Republicans is don’t do it on the other side, either, with this absurd A.G. pick that you just made,” Gowdy said, referring to Gaetz. “Justice is different. It is a combination of policy, law, and also morality. You do not use our justice system as a political weapon. Voters rejected it in November and will reject it if Republicans try to do it. Some things rise above the din. The justice system is one of those things.”

Gaetz has been a massive thorn in the side of his more traditional Republican colleagues since his boycott of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. More importantly, he has massive, troubling allegations of paying to have sex with an underage girl hanging over his head. The House Ethics Committee is still deliberating on whether to release the content of its investigation into these allegations, and the outcome could be potentially damning for Gaetz.

This is not the first time Trump’s actions have left his own media base baffled. Former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson also criticized Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth, writing on X, “From silly diner interviews on Weekend Fox and Friends to Secretary of Defense? I never thought I’d say I’m stunned about any pick after the election but nominating Pete Hegseth for this incredibly important role? Yes he’s a veteran … and?”

These controversial picks promise to make even more controversial Cabinet hearings. We can all only wait and see.