Trump’s team tries to blame Hegseth and Gaetz for their own verification failures

While Donald Trump’s cabinet selects unqualified and alleged sexual predators for scrutiny, he and his MAGA buddies do what the “party of personal responsibility” always does when they screw up: blame others.

While you know Team Trump would like to find a way to blame the Democrats, the sexual assault allegations against Hegseth are Republican vs. Republican. There doesn’t seem to be a single Democrat to blame Gaetz’s inappropriate behavioror. So the next best way to avoid responsibility: blame Hegseth and Gaetz for not doing Trump’s job for him.

By Rolling Stone: :

According to four sources familiar with the situation, some top Trump transition officials and others close to the president-elect were surprised, if not angry, that Hegseth did not preemptively inform them of the allegations against him before they hit the press – primarily by publication of a police report detailing an alleged incident at a hotel in Monterey, California.

“How did he not know? Why didn’t he tell us? – says a source close to Trump. “Pete didn’t interview for a job at McDonald’s; This is the fucking Pentagon! … Even if the allegations are false, it doesn’t matter because he was supposed to tell us what we needed to know so that we would be better prepared to defend him, not find out about it from the media.”

That’s right, Team P***y Grabber, it’s the fucking Pentagon. Why the hell didn’t you do what you were supposed to do and competently vet your own candidate for such an important position?

Apparently there was some display of BS regarding the verification process:

Sources say there was a verification process for Hegseth’s pickaxe, but it did not reveal those details nor was it particularly invasive. Trump’s transition team has not signed agreements with the White House or the Justice Department allowing the FBI to conduct background checks on the president-elect’s nominees.

“When we ask, ‘Is there anything else we should know?’ “is usually a good time to mention the police report,” a Trump adviser says. “He obviously remembered that all this had happened, and there is no way – I don’t think – that he could have believed that this wouldn’t come to light when he got nominated.”

Mediata focuses more on Trump’s attempts to blame his elected officials for failing to do the job he was elected to do (emphasis mine):

According to several sources who spoke to Mediaite, President-elect Donald Trump was misled by Cabinet nominees Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth about the scope of the misconduct allegations against them.

…

Another source who worked for the Trump campaign told Mediaite that when Gaetz was confronted about the sexual harassment allegations against him, he “denied, denied, denied.”

“Trump believed him literally,” the source said. “Gaetz has been caught.”

…

Gaetz wasn’t the only Cabinet nominee said to have misled the president-elect. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, was asked about his past during initial talks with Trump’s team. The source said Hegseth – who has been married three times and had multiple extramarital affairs – was asked if there had been any scandals in his past and if he had ever signed a non-disclosure agreement.

“He told the campaign he had no problems,” the source said. “There are no problems with assault. There is no NDA. Mixed lies.

Nice try, MAGA world. But Donald Trump’s job is to make sure his cabinet selections are the right ones.

While the media is distracted by salacious details of Gaetz and Hegseth’s alleged sexual assaults (and let’s not forget that serious allegations of sexual misconduct have been made in connection with the HHS election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of Education Linda McMahaon), let’s focus on the forest, not the trees.

In other words, Trump has already failed miserably in his first presidential effort this term, and he hasn’t even taken office yet.