For his second-term Cabinet, Donald Trump has put up the most notorious group of ne’er-do-wells since fictional Gov. William J. Le Petomane assembled a crew of villains to do nefarious deeds in Mel Brooks’ 1974 comedy, “Blazing Saddles.”
Trump’s version of “Blazing Saddles” Attorney General Hedley Lamarr would be Matt Gaetz, who was a member of Congress from Florida when Trump on Nov. 13 announced his choice of Gaetz as attorney general. Trump apparently was impressed with the Florida man’s performance as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, questioning motives of Justice Department officials and railing against what Trumpers call the “deep state.”
Trump may have been unaware, or didn’t care, that the House Ethics Committee was investigating allegations against Gaetz of sexual misconduct with a minor, sex trafficking and illicit drug use; sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor; misusing state identification records; converting campaign funds to personal use; and accepting impermissible gifts under House rules.
Gaetz claimed the allegations were political payback and were built on lies, but he quit the House as the Ethics Committee was finalizing its report, which effectively stopped its release. It didn’t save his nomination, as at least five Republican senators — in a chamber where they could only lose three — said they couldn’t vote for Gaetz. He withdrew his name Nov. 21.
Trump quickly replaced Gaetz with Pam Bondi, another Trump loyalist who has experience as Florida attorney general. At that job, she snubbed a request from the New York attorney general to join a fraud lawsuit against Trump University, after Trump’s foundation sent Bondi’s campaign a $25,000 donation. She also worked with other Republican attorneys general attacking the Affordable Care Act, she defended Trump in his first impeachment trial and she represented Trump in promoting the Big Lie after Joe Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election.
But Trump wasn’t done overlooking questionable personal backgrounds of nominees, as he picked Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary, apparently based more on his role as a weekend Fox News co-host than his experience as a junior officer of the Minnesota National Guard who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain and was promoted to major in 2014 when he left active duty to be assigned to the Army Individual Ready Reserve.
In 2007 Hegseth was named executive director of Vets For Freedom, which advocated a greater troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2008, VFF was unable to pay its creditors, who became concerned that money was being wasted on organization parties. A 2009 forensic accountant report by creditors led to Hegseth admitting that the organization was about half a million dollars in debt. VFF’s backers merged its core functions with another veterans group, Military Families United, and reduced Hegseth’s role from executive director and president with a $45,000 salary to an officer with a $5,000 salary, Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker.
Hegseth was executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, a Koch-funded advocacy group, from 2013 to 2016. The group advocated privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and sought to get veterans involved with conservative political causes, Mayer reported. In a whistleblower report, former CVA employees said Hegseth was frequently heavily intoxicated during official events to the point of having to be restrained, passing out, and shouting in a bar, calling for the death of Muslims. The report also said that he sexually pursued female employees and under his leadership the organization ignored allegations of sexual impropriety, including allegations of sexual assault. According to Mayer’s reporting, mismanagement and alcoholism concerns led to Hegseth’s forced resignation from CVA in January 2016.
In October 2017, a woman told police in Monterey, California, Hegseth had sexually assaulted her in a hotel room. The woman told police that she was with Hegseth at the hotel bar, where “things got fuzzy” and, she said, a drug may have been slipped into her drink. She told police she remembered “being in an unknown room with Hegseth,” who took away her phone and blocked her efforts to leave. She told police she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot” and that Hegseth had sex with her. She told police that she did not recall the incident for several days, after which she went to the emergency room for a rape test kit, and an ER nurse reported the incident to police. Hegseth told police he did have sex with the woman but that it was consensual. Police referred the matter to Monterey County District Attorney, who declined to press charges.
Hegseth’s attorney said Hegseth denies the allegations by his accuser, but he settled with her several years ago, to prevent her from filing a lawsuit that could damage his television career.
Timothy Parlatore told NPR via email, “the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed.” However, Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni told NPR her office declined to pursue the case in early 2018, after determining, “No charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Another multi-problematic appointee is Kash Patel, whom Trump is nominating for director of the FBI. First of all, the position has a director, Christopher Wray, whom Trump appointed in 2017 to serve a 10-year term that doesn’t expire until 2027.
A former federal prosecutor, Patel worked in Trump’s first administration as a counterterrorism adviser in the White House. He also held various national security posts, including chief of staff to acting defense secretary Christopher Miller in the final months of Trump’s White House term after he lost the 2020 election.
Patel has said he would support the president-elect’s plans to seek retribution against perceived enemies. He has talked about targeting what he called “conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” and Patel already has threatened legal action against Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence over her comments criticizing Patel.
These are just a few of the mooks Trump plans to array against Democrats and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. God help us, we need at least four Republican senators with backbones who are willing to stand up against the Debaucher in Chief’s dubious choices.
Finally, Americans should grant absolution to President Joe Biden for pardoning his son, Hunter, for relatively minor crimes that could have gotten him prison time, after President Biden promised last June not to interfere in the course of justice. Since then, Joe Biden dropped out of his re-election race, Trump, a convicted felon, won a new term with a promise of revenge against his political opponents, including the “Biden crime family,” and Patel said he would reopen the investigation of Hunter, who, by the way, has paid his back taxes and penalties, remains sober, and nobody was harmed by the pistol he bought after declaring he wasn’t using drugs.
If there ever was a campaign promise worth breaking, this is it. Give Joe a break. At least he didn’t make Hunter an ambassador, as Trump plans for son-in-law Jared Kushner’s pardoned father. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2025
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