Trump Transition Live Updates: News on Matt Gaetz and House Ethics Committee

What once passed as disqualifying for a presidential nominee seems downright benign in comparison to allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by his attorney general pick detailed in a secret congressional report, a sexual assault accusation followed by a paid settlement for his choice to head the Pentagon and an acknowledged former heroin addiction by the would-be health secretary.

It was not so long ago that nominees for high-level jobs and even some of the more obscure ones had to be above reproach, to the point where a relatively minor tax issue could derail them. But times are evidently changing when it comes to nominations at the dawn of the second Trump administration.

“Standards are apparently evolving,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas and a senior member of the Judiciary Committee. The panel would consider the nomination of former Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, for attorney general if he is formally put forward.

Mr. Gaetz was the subject of a Justice Department investigation and a House Ethics Committee inquiry into drug use and whether he had sex with a minor, among other allegations. He and his supporters dismiss the accusations as a smear and emphasize that federal prosecutors declined to charge him, although the underlying claims against him in the case were well documented. The ethics findings remain confidential after the panel deadlocked on Wednesday on whether to release its report.

Senate Democrats are flabbergasted at the accounts surrounding multiple Trump selections for top jobs and contend they would never have gotten past the initial vetting stage of past administrations either Republican or Democrat, let alone be put forward for Senate confirmation.

“That’s stuff you couldn’t get past the vet,” said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado. “Now people wear it like a badge of honor.”

The histories of some of the potential picks have also raised alarm with Republicans who have expressed resistance to Mr. Trump’s selections and the prospect of him making an end run around the Senate confirmation process with appointments while the chamber is in recess.

“I am one who believes that integrity and character matter,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said in an interview. “I refuse to be deterred, even given some indications that perhaps character and integrity are not the highest qualifications for office.”

Others among her fellow Republicans are untroubled by the histories of the prospective nominees and say that the Senate should quickly consider and approve them or get out of the way, arguing that Mr. Trump is entitled to his personnel preferences.

“There’s a lot of people, if you think about the first Trump administration, that got nominated and never got confirmed,” said Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida. “So we’re going to have to figure out, how do we help this president who got elected with a mandate to change the country get his nominations done?”

Senate confirmation has historically been such an arduous process that some potential appointees have declined to go into government rather than face the hearing gantlet and open their lives and finances to intense scrutiny that can uncover potential issues and more.

In previous years, the disclosure of even minor improprieties was often enough to end the nomination process and lead to a withdrawal, sparing the White House and the individual embarrassment before the nomination got to a vote. It is rare that a cabinet nominee is actually defeated. The last was in 1989, when former Senator John Tower, Republican of Texas, made it all the way to the floor only to be rejected as defense secretary by the Democratic-controlled Senate because of alcohol abuse and other issues.

But Mr. Trump, who has faced his own accusations of sexual abuse and election subversion, does not appear embarrassed in the least about the backgrounds of his choices and has so far shown no inclination to back down on them. Instead, he has doubled down as is his habit, giving them full-throated endorsement as the kind of people who will enact the change he demands.

It is a difference from the past. Take Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader whom President Barack Obama nominated in 2008 to be health secretary. It was discovered that he never paid income taxes on the use of a car and driver lent to him while he consulted for a financial firm. Mr. Daschle said he was unaware that the car counted as income, and he paid more than $100,000 in back taxes. But the damage was done, and it was determined he couldn’t clear the Senate he once led.

Not one but two of President Bill Clinton’s potential attorney general selections were found to be objectionable because of their employment of undocumented immigrants and, in the case of the corporate lawyer Zoe Baird, failing to pay the required payroll taxes for them. After that, “nanny tax” issues became a standard vetting question for prospective presidential picks. Other potential nominees for a variety of posts ended up withdrawing because of tax liens or questions about their deductions.

In another high-profile incident, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg was forced to withdraw his name from consideration as President Ronald Reagan’s nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy in 1987 after it was disclosed that he had smoked marijuana as a college student in the 1960s and occasionally again in the 1970s while on the faculty at Harvard Law School.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s pick for health secretary, has acknowledged a yearslong addiction to heroin. He was convicted of possessing heroin after his arrest following a flight to South Dakota in 1983 and says he has been in recovery since then.

As for the tweets, Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, withdrew after it was determined that she couldn’t clear the narrowly divided Senate in 2021 because of previous social media posts critical of senators. Mr. Gaetz’s social media feed is replete with digs at some of the same senators whose votes he now needs to be confirmed, but there appears to be no move to withdraw him.

Both Democrats and Republicans have also expressed concern about reports that Pete Hegseth, an Army veteran and Fox News personality whom Mr. Trump has tapped for defense secretary, reached a settlement to avoid a lawsuit by a woman who accused him of sexual assault at a 2017 conservative conference in California.

Democrats say the questions about the Trump picks go beyond the minor infractions on the records of past nominees who didn’t pass muster.

“These aren’t blemishes,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “These are deep stains.”

He and others said the rationale that criminal charges weren’t filed in some cases — as was the case for both Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Hegseth — does not meet the traditional confirmation standard.

“In the past, this sordid, raunchy, indisputed involvement in criminality would have been totally disqualifying,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and another member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Cornyn, the Texas Republican, said the questions surrounding nominees and their backgrounds demonstrated why the Senate must follow its traditional confirmation process to sort out which reports are true or not. He has pressed for the release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on Mr. Gaetz, for instance, and even said he would be open to issuing a subpoena if the panel refused to allow senators to see it.

“I have no idea whether it’s people’s speculation or it’s factual or it’s opinion,” he said of the allegations against the prospective nominees. “That’s why the best thing we can do is just do our due diligence.”