Trump’s snub at #metoo

(New York) Birds of a feather flock together. This old adage seems to apply to Donald Trump and several potential members of his next administration. What they have in common is having had to respond to allegations of a sexual nature. Some of them continue to be forced to do so.

We must obviously eliminate from this group Matt Gaetz, who last week withdrew his candidacy for the post of attorney general of the United States. Although he survived a Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking involving a 17-year-old minor, the former Florida representative lived in fear of the release of a report from the House Ethics Committee representatives on other equally sordid allegations.

But Donald Trump has others like himself in Robert Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk and Linda McMahon. The man who was accused of sexual misconduct by 27 women, who boasted of being able to grab women’s genitals without their consent and who was found responsible for sexual assault against the ex-journalist E. Jean Carroll, this same man recently re-elected to the White House, is in the process of forming an administration that represents a snub to the #metoo movement.

Even before the first president-elect was named, far-right troll Nick Fuentes may have described the new era best. “Your body, my choice,” he wrote on X, having fun distorting the slogan “My body, my choice” of activists in the movement for reproductive rights and sexual freedom.

As of this writing, her post has gotten over 97 million views and has been re-tweeted over 36,000 times.

With that, here is a summary of the allegations against the individuals mentioned above.

Robert Kennedy Jr.

In 1999, Eliza Cooney, then 23, served as Robert Kennedy Jr.’s assistant and part-time nanny to his children. Last summer, she told the magazine Vanity Fair that her employer at the time, who became a presidential candidate, had committed unwanted sexual touching on her. She notably recalled that John Kennedy’s nephew approached her in the kitchen of her Mount Kisco, New York, home and groped her hips, ribcage and breasts. .

“I had my back to the pantry door and he approached me. I was frozen. Shocked,” she told Vanity Fair.

Robert Kennedy Jr. did not deny the accusation, but he downplayed its seriousness. “I’ve said it from the beginning: I’m not an altar boy. I don’t operate like that,” he said during a podcast show. “I had a very, very turbulent youth. I said in my announcement speech that I had so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world. »

Appointed to the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr. was 45 years old at the time of the acts with which he is accused.

Pete Hegseth

Appointed Secretary of Defense, the former Fox News host was involved in a police investigation into a sexual assault in Monterey, California, in October 2017. According to a police report released last week, the alleged victim, elderly 30 years old, found herself in Pete Hegseth’s hotel room after spending part of the evening with him and friends at the hotel bar. Earlier in the day, the former National Guard major gave a speech to a group of Republican women at the same hotel.

Having drunk more than usual and suspecting she had been drugged, the woman did not retain a clear memory of the sequence of events. But she notably remembered that Pete Hegseth took her phone from her hand and blocked the door with his body when she tried to leave the room.

“Jane Doe then remembered that Hegseth ejaculated on her stomach. Hegseth threw him a towel and asked, “Are you okay?” “, we can read in the police report.

Pete Hegseth, whose future third wife had given birth to their first child two months earlier, said the sex had been consensual. No charges have been brought against him. In 2020, however, he paid the woman a sum of money as part of a confidentiality agreement. Donald Trump’s transition team did not like learning this detail in the media.

Elon Musk

Appointed to head a task force charged with reducing American bureaucracy, the richest man on the planet was sued last June by six SpaceX employees, who claim to have been fired for denouncing discrimination and sexual harassment within the aerospace company.

According to the plaintiffs, Elon Musk wants to be “the leader of a new world of space travel, but is running his company in the Dark Ages – treating women like sex objects valued by their bra size, bombarding the workplace with lewd sexual jokes.”

In May 2022, Elon Musk also denied a report from Business Insider that he paid $250,000 as part of a settlement with a female flight attendant on SpaceX’s fleet of business jets who accused him of sexual misconduct. According to interviews and documents cited by Business Insiderthe woman accused Musk “of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without her consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage.”

Linda McMahon

Appointed Secretary of Education, the co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is targeted with her husband Vince McMahon by a civil lawsuit brought by five people who worked several years ago as ring boys (teenagers who helped organize WWE events). The plaintiffs claim the McMahons knew they were being sexually assaulted by other high-ranking WWE employees and did not do enough to protect them.

It remains to be seen whether Matt Gaetz will be the one to throw in the towel.