PALM BEACH, Fla. — Former congressman Matt Gaetz met his fans Thursday evening on the grass outside Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, newly anointed as president-elect Trump’s choice to be the nation’s top cop despite an ongoing House investigation into accusations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl.
“A colonoscopy feels great,” he joked about the new attention.
Around him, in black tie and glittery dresses, the second Trump administration was beginning to bloom. Action hero Sylvester Stallone would soon be speaking, as would the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s proposed pick for health and human services secretary, who’d accused the federal health agencies of “mass poisoning the American public” just 82 days earlier.
Donald Trump
President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute Gala at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday.
So much was yet not exactly according to plan beyond the celebrations and behind closed doors. The transition has vetted some potential nominees appropriately, but Trump has also run off his own script with many of his personnel choices — selecting candidates who have not been vetted and acting outside the transition structure in a way that has immediately caused grave political problems, according to interviews with 18 people involved, most of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity so that they could speak candidly. The president-elect has been largely unmoved, ebullient, and basking in his victory on the patio of Mar-a-Lago.
“He wants to blow up these institutions,” one person close to Trump said of the nominations to run Justice and Defense. “He wants someone to blow these places up.”
Tim Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, said Friday that the assault allegation was “fully investigated and found not to be true.” Asked whether Hegseth sought a nondisclosure agreement with the woman, Parlatore said that “there’s no other skeletons to come out.” He added, “There’s no reason to withdraw that I’m aware of.” Cheung described the accusations against Hegseth as “left-wing media concocted falsehoods.”
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the woman at the center of the Gaetz probe posted on social media that the unreleased House Ethics Committee report on Gaetz’s behavior should be made public—a move opposed Friday by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who also attended Thursday night’s gala at Mar-a-Lago.
“She was a high school student, and there were witnesses,” lawyer John Clune wrote on X in a plea for the transparency of the report.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., right, talks with Gaetz and Gaetz’s wife, Ginger Luckey Gaetz, at the America First Policy Institute Gala on Thursday
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