Gloria Allred wants all of Trump’s cabinet picks to be asked uncomfortable sex question at confirmation hearings

A leading sexual harassment lawyer is expected to ask new President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks to each answer an uncomfortable sex question that could help uncover more allegations of abuse.

Trump‘s Cabinet-building process is already mired in controversy after allegations of sexual misconduct emerged against several of his picks, including Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and now-dumped Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz.

But in an exclusive conversation with DailyMail.com, Gloria Allred, who has represented numerous women in these types of cases, including some against Trump, suggests there are more alleged victims who maintain their silence only because they are bound by confidentiality agreements.

As a result, Allred said, all Cabinet prospects subject to Senate confirmation should be forced to answer the same loaded question during confirmation hearings.

“I think all nominees should be asked the question, ‘Did you reach a confidential settlement with someone who accused you of sexually inappropriate behavior?’

‘And if so, ‘do you agree to release the person you settled with from the confidentiality clause to which he or she agreed?” she told DailyMail.com.

Allred, a civil rights lawyer and women’s rights advocate who has been called “every predator’s worst nightmare,” would not say whether she herself represents any alleged victims, chuckling and saying “no comment” when asked.

But last week she took heart from news reports that Hegseth, under pressure, had revoked his accuser’s non-disclosure agreement.

Allred hopes other nominees will follow his example.

“I believe the question should be asked and the answer should be public, even if the accuser’s name is not made public,” she said.

The Trump transition got off to a rocky start last month when he began announcing his picks for his new Cabinet, and a troubling pattern emerged.

Gaetz, a former MAGA Congress ally and president-elect appointed U.S. attorney general, faced sex trafficking charges that became the subject of a three-year DOJ investigation.

On Monday, it was revealed that a House Ethics Committee investigation found that Gaetz paid more than $90,000 for sex with multiple women, including a 17-year-old girl.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and former National Guard officer nominated for secretary of defense, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2017 at a conference in Monterey, California.

He admitted that he paid the woman for her silence because he didn’t want to lose his job.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., selected to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, was accused of sexually assaulting a former family babysitter in the late 1990s.

Elon Musk, appointed co-head of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is said to have paid $250,000 to one of his company’s flight attendants who accused him of exposing himself and offering her sex during a flight in 2016 .

He is being sued by eight former SpaceX engineers who claim they were fired after raising concerns about alleged sexual harassment and discrimination against women.

Trump’s pick of Education Secretary Linda McMahon is accused in a lawsuit of ignoring abuse of underage “ring boys” when she was co-founder and president of World Wrestling Entertainment.

And Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ex-fiancée of Trump’s son Don Jr., who has been nominated to become the US ambassador to Greece, is now under renewed scrutiny over claims that Fox let her go in 2018 over alleged sexual harassment of her female assistant.

The series of allegations against Trump nominees were seen as obstacles but not necessarily disqualifications from confirmation, especially given Trump’s own history and the reality that American voters elected him to a second term even after dozens of women accused him of assault, and a jury ruled he is liable for sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996.

“From Trump’s perspective, it’s about power and threatening members of Congress, especially Republican members, into voting for his nominees,” Allred told DailyMail.com.

Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W. Bush’s press secretary, saw it differently, saying the public, like lawmakers, should not rush to judgment.

Of Hegseth, he said, “I don’t think it’s fair (to convict him) until you hear all the evidence. “There has still been no hearing, and no accuser has been named.”

Fleischer cited former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken as an example of someone who was wrongfully removed from office in 2017 when a snapshot surfaced of him pretending to grope a sleeping woman.

“I publicly defended Franken at the time,” Fleischer said. “What he did was wrong, but whether or not he should be removed from the Senate should have been a matter for the people of Minnesota, not Washington.

“At the height of the #MeToo movement, anything said by anyone, especially if said anonymously, had to be believed or you were a pariah,” Fleischer continued.

“And famously, we saw many allegations, especially against political figures, including Brett Kavanaugh, not upheld,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court justice.

“Given that history, combined with an environment today where people want fundamental change in Washington and change agents installed, things are different,” he said.

Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist who has run 20 political campaigns, acknowledged that Democratic leaders have also faced their own scandals, including Bill Clinton’s infamous cover-up of his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, which led to his impeachment.

But she said the sheer number of allegations against Trump nominees has set a new precedent.

“We’ve come a long way from the days when presidential candidates were disqualified for paying their domestic helpers on the books to now, when multiple potential Cabinet members are accused of sexual assault and other offenses,” Smith said.

“It just goes to show that these things seem to matter less in a post-Trump world,” she continued.

“And in a post-Trump world, the things Republicans always said they cared about — family values, personal righteousness — don’t really matter.

“They’re willing to throw all those things out the window for one person, Donald Trump.”

She is curious how the Senate will ultimately deal with the various accusations.

“They shouldn’t all be treated the same,” Smith said. “A credible allegation of sexual assault should be treated very differently than an allegation that Kimberly Guilfoyle shared an inappropriate workplace photo.”

Bill Dailey, a fellow at the Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, told DailyMail.com that he took heart from the fact that four Republican senators came out against Gaetz and undermined his nomination.

He said he hopes senators will do the same for other nominees if “they don’t pass.”

“I read Hegseth’s police report and I could see how a senator could read that and still vote for him if, after meetings and further research, they feel like he’s in a better place now,” Dailey said.

“If anything, it looks like they’re letting him plead a case and making him sweat, and it looked like the president was even willing to drop him.

“There are a lot of checks and balances in the system and some of them seem to be working,” he added.