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Matt Gaetz as AG is laughable if it weren't so horrific and dangerous
The nomination is really Trump's loyalty test of Senate Republicans: If they go along, there's nothing they won't go along with.
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Friends,
Trump has nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as America’s next Attorney General.
This would be laughable were it not so utterly dangerous.
Gaetz as Attorney General would all but guarantee that Trump weaponizes the Justice Department against his enemies — past, present, and future.
Ever since Trump was first indicted, Gaetz has been defending him non-stop, alleging that the prosecutions of Trump have been politically motivated, claiming that Joe Biden is behind them, charging the Biden administration with vindictiveness toward Trump, and saying that Trump would have every right to engage in similar vengeance toward Trump’s political enemies.
In making these bogus claims, Gaetz has often used Trump’s wildly partisan and incendiary language.
I worked in the Justice Department in the years following Richard Nixon’s attempt to use the Department to prosecute and intimidate Nixon’s enemies.
To restore faith and trust in the Department, President Gerald Ford appointed Edward Levi as Attorney General. Before his appointment, Levi had been dean of the University of Chicago Law School and president of the University of Chicago.
One of Levi’s most important accomplishments was to insulate the Department of Justice from political interference by establishing a set of rules that prevented the White House from privately contacting an Attorney General or any other Justice Department officials.
How far we’ve fallen.
Gaetz, a 42-year-old congressman from Florida, has zero qualifications for being the highest law enforcement official in the land. He has never been a government attorney. He has never been a judge.
Gaetz is now under investigation by the House Ethics Committee in connection with a sex-trafficking scandal. (The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for his alleged involvement with a girl who was 17 at that time, to determine if he paid for sex in violation of federal sex-trafficking laws, but closed the investigation last year after career prosecutors were reportly unsure about the credibility of two central witnesses.)
If confirmed, Gaetz would lead the Justice Department’s more than 100,000 employees at a time when Trump’s allies are demanding a purge of career DOJ staffers who may have opposed some of Trump’s efforts during his first term or worked on cases involving Trump or his supporters.
Gaetz has defended Trump at every turn, arguing that Trump has never violated any federal laws. After Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Gaetz was defiant. “We’re ashamed of nothing,” he publicly said.
In other words, nominating Gaetz to be Attorney General is only slightly less ridiculous than nominating Vladimir Putin to be Secretary of Defense.
The key question is whether Gaetz can be confirmed by a Republican Senate.
Two key Republican moderates have already indicated they would likely vote against him. Senator Susan Collins said she was “shocked” by the nomination; Senator Lisa Murkowsi said he was not a serious contender for the job.
But Senator Lindsey Graham — a reliable weather-vane for the unscrupulous, and currently the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee — said he was surprised Trump picked Gaetz, whom he called “clever,” and predicted Gaetz would face “tough questions” at his confirmation hearing.
But Graham also said he was inclined to support presidential appointments.
Gaetz’s nomination is a really test by Trump of how far he can go in intimidating, bullying, and generating fear among Senate Republicans.
No Senate Democrat will vote for Gaetz, so Trump and his allies are seeing the Gaetz nomination as a litmus test of loyalty to Trump.
This will be the clearest signal yet of how far Republican senators are willing to do Trump’s bidding on all sorts of sensitive issues, including cutting back Social Security and giving Putin what he wants in Ukraine.
If Trump can get 51 votes for Gaetz, he can get a Senate majority for anything Trump wants to do.
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