President-elect Donald Trump’s choices to join his administration surprised some, bringing some uncertainty about the confirmation process.

Among the questions is former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress on Wednesday, was named Trump’s attorney general. Other eyebrow-raising picks include former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence and Fox News host Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense.

All three of those positions require Senate confirmation, but if Congress agrees, Trump could be given the power to fill vacancies when Congress goes into recess, bypassing the Senate confirmation process.

Even with a Republican majority in the Senate, there are questions about whether Trump can get all three of those selections through the chamber without the need for recess appointments.

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Gaetz had been in office since 2017 and was the subject of a sex-trafficking investigation. The House Ethics Committee is investigating the allegations, but has not released its findings. With Gaetz’s resignation from Congress, it is unclear whether the committee’s findings will ever be made public.

Jamil N. Jaffer, executive director of the National Security Institute, said Gaetz’s appointment was “difficult to understand.”

“It’s hard to imagine he’ll experience an easy confirmation process in the Senate,” Jaffer said. “But there is a real possibility he could be named in the break.”

Gaetz’s appointment could be a way for him to test the loyalty of members of the Senate.

“This is not a nomination designed to help him succeed,” he said. “It could be a test of loyalty in that he will see who in his party will support a dramatically underqualified and weird nomination like Matt Gaetz, but we’ll see.”

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Gabbard was a four-term Democratic congressman before leaving the House. After running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, she left the party and began supporting Trump.

Gabbard has not worked for any of the United States’ intelligence agencies, but Jaffer said former directors of national intelligence have not worked for those agencies, and that fact does not qualify her.

Jaffer noted that Trump has made other more traditional nominations that would not raise eyebrows among members of the Senate, such as Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state.

“These are positive nominations, the others are harder to understand,” Jaffer said.