WASHINGTON – Republican senators say they want to be supportive of President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial picks to lead the Pentagon and FBI.
But they have questions for Pete Hegseth – a veteran and conservative media personality who has been accused of sexual misconduct – and want to see background checks conducted on him and Trump’s choice for a new FBI director, Kash Patel, before they get on board.
“My attitude about the nominations is that that’s why God made confirmation hearings,” said Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, who added that he was unfamiliar with most of Trump’s nominees but has a “completely open mind” about them leading important federal agencies.
While not a legal requirement, FBI background checks on an incoming president’s personnel picks are standard protocol and come with practical reasons including for the sharing of classified information during the transition from one White House to the next. Trump’s team had bypassed the procedure and conducted its own vetting process.
After several Republican senators publicly raised the issue, Trump’s team said Tuesday that it has taken an initial step toward working with the Department of Justice on background checks and security clearances, signing what’s known as a memorandum of understanding that would pave the way for them to engage in that process.
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“Ultimately, this will afford the transition process additional insights, and it facilitates our agency landing teams gaining access to the information they need to prepare for leadership of the federal agencies and departments,” the Trump transition team said in a statement.
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Sen. Roger Wicker, who is set to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee next year and oversee Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, said Monday evening that while he believed the “issue of who does the background checks is about to be resolved,” he wanted to see precedent followed and the FBI conduct background checks on Trump’s intended nominees.
“The background checks are important. Hearing from Americans is important,” said Wicker, a Mississippi Republican.
Wicker added that he expects a hearing to be held on Hegseth in January, after the next Congress gets sworn in and when Republicans have the majority. Senators will balance the arguments for and against Hegseth, he said, and make an “informed judgement” based on what they find out.
Hegseth and Patel are among a handful of Trump nominees whose appointments could still run into trouble in the Senate, even with Republicans in charge. The GOP will hold a narrow 53-47 majority beginning next month, meaning it would take four Republican senators to oppose a Trump nominee in order for it to fail so long as all Democrats and independents stick together and vote ‘no’ too.
Already, one of Trump’s early Cabinet picks, Matt Gaetz, quit Congress and removed himself from consideration to be U.S. attorney general ahead of the potential public release of a House ethics report that examined sexual misconduct allegations against the former Florida GOP lawmaker.
As lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday, damaging new details in the saga surrounding Hegseth emerged.
Hegseth, 44, had been under fire for a 2017 sexual encounter, in which an unidentified woman claimed in a police report the former Fox News anchor blocked the exit of a hotel room in Monterey, California, and sexually assaulted her. Hegseth and his attorneys have denied the allegations and maintained that the encounter was consensual.
In a second incident, Hegseth’s mother, Penelope, called out her son’s “abusive behavior” towards women, in a blistering email from 2018 that the New York Times published last week. She said she has since apologized to her son and called publication of the email “disgusting.”
A whistleblower report at the center of an article in The New Yorker on Sunday alleged Hegseth had been forced out of two non-profit organizations for personal misconduct, mismanagement of funds and intoxication on the job.
“Pete Hegseth dedicated his entire life as a warrior for the troops and for our country,” the Trump transition team said in a statement Tuesday. “He is an incredibly tough and smart candidate that will fight to put America First. He’s clearly being subject to an onslaught of unwarranted and untrue criticism by people, including disgruntled former employees, who don’t want to see President Trump and his Administration enact real, meaningful change at the Pentagon.”
Hegseth’s lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment.
“I’m obviously looking at this new information,” Wicker told reporters on Monday evening. “But I’m still looking to be supportive.”
Wicker said he was not bothered by the email that Hegseth’s mother sent him, noting that she withdrew her comments.
“He’ll be vetted on all that,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, one of Hegseth’s defenders in the Senate, said on Monday. “As I told him, I said, ‘You’re going to have to have all your ducks in a row.’ And he will, when it comes to explaining all that.”
Tuberville called Hegseth “very smart” and defended his qualifications.
“I’ve known Pete for quite a long time,” he said. “I like him because of his age. He’s not a 60, 70-year-old admiral general that doesn’t relate to the war fighters, people who’ve been fighting, men and women that’s going to fight to protect our country.”
Hegseth’s ability to get confirmed will rest on the support of moderates such as Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and senators who are not tightly aligned with Trump. Iowa Republican and military veteran Joni Ernst, a vocal advocate for sexual assault victims, is also being closely watched. Ernst was at Mar-a-Lago last week.
Murkowski declined to comment on Monday. Collins stressed the importance of following the regular Senate confirmation process, which Trump has floated going around with an untested constitutional authority known as “recess appointments” where lawmakers would allow the president to appoint his picks without their OK.
“That is why I do not want to see an attempt to have recess appointments. It’s important that we thoroughly vet the nominees for these very important decisions,” Collins said of Hegseth.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he expects a Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing would take place for Hegseth, who he plans to meet with this week, even if Republicans ultimately opted to go into recess to allow Trump to directly appoint him.
“My presumption is that I’ll support him, and I hope people will at least let him get to his confirmation hearing, hear from him, those who have major concerns,” he said.
Hegseth will be put under oath at the hearing, Hawley, who is not on the committee, added. “What I’d say to my Republican colleagues is give him a chance, let him answer your questions. If you’ve got tough questions, that’s fine. Pose them to him and give him a shot to answer.”
Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said she wants to hear Hegseth’s ideas on how to try to rein in spending at the Department of Defense. Speaking to reporters before a meeting she said she had scheduled with Hegseth on Monday evening, Lummis added that she had not heard about the report that alleged the Trump pick to run the Pentagon had mismanaged funds at veterans’ organizations.
As for the sexual assault allegations, Lummis said she listened to conservative media personality Megyn Kelly’s review of the police report, and “she came away completely convinced that he was the – albeit it, extremely drunk – that he was the more innocent person in that engagement.”
“I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I’m inclined to say yes to Pete Hegseth, but I do have questions,” she said.
Republicans in the Senate, who will be tasked with confirming Trump’s nominees once he takes office, say they are keeping an open mind about his appointments, including the 44-year-old Patel, who Trump announced on Saturday that he plans to nominate as the next FBI director.
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Current FBI director, Christopher Wray, still has more than two years left on his ten-year term. However, Trump can fire Wray, who he appointed after axing former FBI director James Comey, and nominate Patel to the position.
“It’s not illegal,” said Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican who declined in 2024 to endorse Trump. He added that the most important factors as he considers Patel are his background, competency and vision for the agency.
A hardline Trump ally, Patel is a former federal prosecutor and federal public defender who gained notoriety as a top aide to then–House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Patel also worked as the Pentagon’s chief of staff during Trump’s first term, as well as serving as deputy director of National Intelligence and senior director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
Since Trump made his announcement over the weekend, Patel has garnered outside criticism for his verbal bashes against the FBI, as well as skepticism for his lack of experience.
“Hard to imagine a single more threatening and adversarial figure for the FBI in the entire country,” former U.S. Attorney and deputy assistant Attorney General Harry Litman wrote on X.
While Hegseth made the rounds on Capitol Hill on Monday, several senators said they were just starting to get acquainted with Patel’s potential nomination.
“I don’t know Mr. Patel,” said Young. “My expectation will be that we will receive a lot of information. Members of the committee will go ahead and hold hearings, and if I feel like at the end of that process I don’t have the information I need to make an informed decision, I’ll make that known.”
Wicker said, “I know that he has a lot of admirers and a lot of detractors, but…I’ve never met him, never had a conversation with him.”
Like Young and Wicker, others said they want to know more about Patel and expect to get their questions in at confirmation hearings.
“I truly don’t know him,” said Collins. “I had heard his name, but I don’t know his background. He’s the nominee I will have to do a lot of work on.”
Contributing: Nick Penzenstadler, Josh Meyer
