Bypassing the standard procedure comes as president-elect’s choices of RFK Jr and Matt Gaetz send shockwaves

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Donald Trump’s transition team has bypassed standard background checks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on some of his controversial cabinet nominees, it has been reported, minimising the chances of them being rejected for Senate confirmation based on any past transgressions or conflicts of interest.

Such background checks – a longstanding tradition for incoming presidential nominations dating back decades to the early cold war – have instead been outsourced to private investigators.