The Trump-Vance administration is quickly taking shape. President-elect Donald Trump has already announced a flurry of nominations and appointments. Some, such as Pete Hegseth’s nomination for Defense Secretary, came as a surprise, but it didn’t take long for most to see the rationale behind this decision.
But even Trump’s most ardent supporters were stunned by his nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general. The pick came as a lightning bolt. One moment, we were reveling in the symphony taking place before us, and the next, we were jolted awake by a sour note.
Why is the Gaetz pick so controversial?
Gaetz has made a lot of enemies in Washington, D.C. In fact, there were times he may have been the most reviled man in the GOP. For example, after winning back the House majority in the midterms, Republicans set about electing a speaker in January 2023. Gaetz led a small group of members who withheld their support from frontrunner Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in order to extract concessions. Following a humiliating public spectacle, and McCarthy’s agreement to some extraordinary conditions, he won the speakership on the fifteenth ballot.
One of the concessions was a change to a parliamentary rule called a “motion to vacate the speaker’s chair.” Under the new rule, a single member of the Republican caucus could “force a vote to remove the speaker.”
After actively thwarting McCarthy’s agenda throughout the year, Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate in October 2023. His action resulted in McCarthy’s ouster as Speaker, and thrust Republicans into more chaos as they decided on a replacement.
Additionally, Gaetz was the subject of a DOJ investigation into allegations of child sex trafficking and illegal drug use. Although that probe ended in February 2023 without Gaetz being charged with a crime, Axios reported in June that the House Ethics Committee confirmed “it had picked up where the Justice Department left off.”
Hours after Gaetz was nominated for attorney general on Wednesday, he abruptly resigned from Congress. Punchbowl News revealed that the HEC was scheduled to vote on releasing a “highly damaging” report about its findings on Friday.
Under HEC rules, if the subject of an open investigation resigns from Congress, the investigation ends. But members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will be voting to either confirm or deny Gaetz’s nomination are demanding access to this report. Given the importance of the attorney general position, it will be hard for the HEC to keep it sealed. And considering the number of enemies Gaetz has made in Congress, the chances of the report being leaked are high.
So why did Trump choose Gaetz?
Perhaps for the very reasons he is so unpopular among his Capitol Hill colleagues. Independent journalist Jesse Kelly hit the nail on the head: Gaetz was nominated precisely because he is a disruptor.
Kelly wrote that while he understands why people are critical of this pick, “[W]e need disruptors now. Not polite people. We need people who are going to go in and make bad people uncomfortable. If he can get confirmed, I love it. Turn that dog loose.”
Some people are complaining about @mattgaetz and while I understand the criticisms, please know that we need disruptors now.
Not polite people. We need people who are going to go in and make bad people uncomfortable.
If he can get confirmed, I love it. Turn that dog loose.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) November 13, 2024
Fox News contributors Mollie Hemingway and Trey Gowdy strongly disagreed on Gaetz’s fitness for the position on Friday night. Gowdy said, “You don’t root out corruption at the Department of Justice by picking a corrupt person to lead it.”
Gaetz is many things, but he’s not corrupt. And Hemingway set him straight.
“For the last eight years, they [the DOJ] have run roughshod over the rule of law in this country,” she said. “They have prosecuted political opponents. Matt Gaetz was one of the most effective people at fighting the Russia collusion hoax and other information operations.”
Regarding the HEC probe, Hemingway emphasized that following their investigations, the FBI and the DOJ cleared Gaetz of any wrongdoing.
“People are sick and tired of people in Washington, D.C., doing nothing as these people tried to destroy the country and getting upset at someone who actually might root out the corruption there. We don’t have a Department of Justice. We have a Department of Injustice, and that’s why you get Matt Gaetz as a nominee.”
Cornell University law professor and founder of Legal Insurrection William Jacobson weighed in during a Thursday radio interview. He sees the pick as “a big middle finger by Trump towards the DOJ based on what they’ve done to him.”
He said, “This is the same institution that, in the infancy of the first Trump presidency, tried to destroy him. Remember James Comey … set Trump up at a meeting at the White House a day or two into the first term, knowing that Trump wouldn’t have lawyers around him and used that as an excuse to get CNN to leak the phony Steele dossier.”
Can Gaetz survive a Senate confirmation hearing?
It looks doubtful. It’s unlikely any Senate Democrats will support him and Gaetz can only afford to lose three Republican senators. Comments to reporters from Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and John Cornyn (R-TX) about Gaetz’s nomination did not sound promising.
Sources told the Wall Street Journal, “Far more than three of them are prepared to vote no. … Other estimates ranged from more than a dozen Republican ‘no’ votes to more than 30.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told the Journal “he didn’t think Gaetz would have the votes to be approved by the Judiciary Committee, much less to be confirmed by the full Senate.”
Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey wrote that a recess appointment “is looking like the only path” forward for Gaetz. “And since it’s clear that the recess would be mainly for Gaetz, it’s not going to happen.”
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Stroke of genius. I just hope Gaetz lives up to his reputation.
What Gaetz did, by resigning his seat, was the only way he could stop that attempt of extortion by a House committee hearing that was designed for one purpose: to declare that a house committee could override any provision of the presumption of innocence, as is embedded in the Constitution. I hope Trump lets Gaetz off his leash.
We live too often by gossip, extortion and influence peddlers, when we should seek the truth. Politics is so corrupt and polarized that no one could win, fair and square, in the face of all the crap flowing out of their detractors.
Recess appointments aren’t new, and I hope Trump uses them, just like a big lot of presidents have in the past, to shut down the Shumers.