Trump Nominates Rep. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General
Yeah, I’m speechless.
So, um, this pick…I don’t even know.
Yes, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for attorney general. Trump wrote:
Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department. On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization. He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ, and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime, and upholding our Democracy and Constitution. We must have Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency at DOJ. Under Matt’s leadership, all Americans will be proud of the Department of Justice once again.
I doubt Gaetz gets confirmed. I doubt moderate and left-leaning Republicans like Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski vote to confirm him.
Moderate Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) didn’t answer questions about Gaetz. He only expressed his excitement for Sen. Marco Rubio’s nomination as secretary of state.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described Gaetz as a “smart-clever guy.”
Graham added: “I usually support presidential picks to be in their cabinet. I’ve done that for both sides. That’s my disposition.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) said Gaetz has “his work cut out for him.”
The House Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz since 2021. He allegedly engaged in “sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted impermissible gifts under House rules.”
House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest said that if he’s confirmed as AG or resigns, the inquiries will end. But he reminded everyone that happens to anyone if they retire, resign, or lose re-election.
Alan Feuer at The New York Times is obsessed with connecting the “Proud Boys” to Trump and Gaetz.
He brings it up in two posts on the live blog:
When Matt Gaetz attended Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan earlier this year, he adopted language that Trump himself used to call out the Proud Boys during a presidential debate. “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President,” Gaetz wrote on X.
Someone tell Feuer that Gaetz was more than likely mocking the media for taking Trump’s comments out of context.
Also:
Gaetz not only voted with about 150 of his Republican colleagues to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. He also took part in what prosecutors have suggested was a dry run for the “Stop the Steal” efforts that year, protesting the results of a hotly contested Senate race in Florida with members of the Proud Boys and other Trump supporters.
Give it a rest, bro.
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Edwin Meese revisited. This will be a disaster. Trump never learns.
Trump’s election prediction by TDSers was a disaster. He learned more than his haters, now crawling from under rocks, it seems.
Well, look who’s back. Did you cry it out over the last week, JR? We’re here for you, lil buddy.
Nice job on those electoral prognostications, btw. They were as accurate as your quotes.
You are nothing if not predictable.
Apparently, neither do your.
ID10T.
#47 learned enough to figure out how to appeal to the electorate for a second time, and, win a majority of the popular vote.
Oh, are you done crying for a while?
Hey there lil buddy! Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. I figured you’d still be in the fetal position.
Still posting the same verbal vomitus, I see.
You’re like what Gates said of Biden: wrong on everything for the last 40 years.
Do us all a favor and slink back to Althouse.
Project much?
Trump is just trying to kill off the Democrats by making their heads explode again. I hope he succeeds.
JR just arrived and proved your point.
Netanyahu had pagers,
Trump has nominations.
Its a troll pick. Every lawyer in the DOJ will resign, and then Trump will withdraw the nomination. Gaetz will have served his purpose.
Doubtful, as he has already resigned from the House.
What a surprise. But if dismantling the deep state is the goal, then Gaetz seems well-suited. A bridge too far for many, but at least he will seek to cross it and in the process stop the weaponization of justice by predecessors more “qualified.”
Mike Davis would be a good choice for AG. He’s already threatened to throw Letitia James ‘fat ass’ in jail on civil rights violations. Davis would definitely be a disruptor as AG and reform the DoJ.
But he was not picked so does it matter if he would be a good choice or not? Gaetz will swim or sink. If the latter, then other good choices will appear.
You should go ahead and start looking for plan b to Gaetz as AG. Too many squishy Senators to get him confirmed. His nomination is essentially DOA.
Who do you like as plan b? I like Davis.
No plan B. It’s a waste of time to speculate over what isn’t. Others can do that to their liking, however, but prefer to wait until the matter is ripe.
Ok got it, we can expect your suggestions when the Gaetz nomination fails.
Who you like for Treasury Sec since we don’t have a nominee yet?
No idea. Just happy that the progressive woke train is derailed and the country seems eager for change.
Yeah thought that would be the pick
Garland, Reno, and Holder (who I thought was bad until I met Garland) can all be confirmed but Gaetz can’t be? Don’t think so. And there’s always a recess appointment, if necessary.
Unless Thune channels Mitch McDickhead and refuses to recess.
Even Trump’s surprise appointees are immune from serious doubt. Except Gaetz. Whether or not he’s a great guy and would turn out to be a fine AG, Gaetz has little or no criminal law or management experience, and his judgment is questionable-see the Speaker McCarthy affair.
It’s President Trump’s judgment that matters most. And all the right scum in the DOJ are scared ___less. That’s more than good enough for me. And, just as an aside, remind me of RFK’s criminal law and management experience before he was made AG under Kennedy?
You seem to be forgetting that the advice and consent of a Senate majority will also factor into the process and their judgment up/down definitely is the last word on the success or failure of a nomination.
For many of the early years of our nation, the president would walk to the senate with a list of nominees and ask if they approved, providing advice and consent.
The informality you describe doesn’t lessen the power of the Senate as whole to defeat a nomination.
Congress adopted an anti-nepotism law (5 U.S.C. § 3110) post-Kennedy for exactly the reason you cite; Bobby Kennedy was unqualified.
RFK was picked because JFK understood that AG was perhaps the personally most important appointment of all. Obama did similarly with Holder. Trump picked Sessions and Barr (and Rosenstein), without whom IMO he would have won in 2020.
Exactly. The AG is the most important pick a President makes. Their trustworthiness and loyalty must be absolute and unquestioned.
As to AG Kennedy. In his day, you come out of law school having never met a client or knowing how to file a case. So, as to the law, AG was one of the few jobs he was qualified for. On the management side, not so much.
Gaetz was 100% correct in the McCarthy Speakership issue.
I don’t believe Gaetz to be a very good pick. He just doesn’t have the necessary gravitas.
I was hoping Trump would choose a conservatively solid and courageous AG from one of the states, someone able AND willing to take on the crazies.
Right. It’s not like we don’t have a robust stable of REALLY capable and reliable America First conservatives currently serving as state AGs who have proven their bona fides as conservative prosecutors. Kobach (AG-KS), Paxton (AG-TX) or Bailey (AG-MO) would have all been fantastic picks, for example. Over the last 4-years, they’ve done incredible damage to the Biden Administration with litigation they’ve filed.
Perhaps that’s where he’ll look once Gaetz drops a nuclear weapon on the DOJ and the senate refuses to confirm him.
He just doesn’t have the necessary gravitas.,/i.
LOL that is funny.
I doubt he will make it, but then Trump did get elected and I did not think that would happen. This will suck air out of all other news cycle. I am looking forward to the confirmation hearings.
He could talk a lot of people down in the process publicly.
BTW Ted Olson pass today.
Patton Texas
KABOOM!!
Awesome. Trump has been killing it with his nominations.
That’s why Trump told the Senate that he MUST have recess appointments.
Maybe you missed the fact that the DC establishment in the Senate elected McConnell protege and acolyte of the establishment Sen John Thune as Majority Leader. Ain’t no way that Thune takes the Senate into recess sufficient to give Trump recess appointments. Not happening.
Trump was explicit about that requirement before the leadership vote … and I would bet that he got a promise in private (though Thune said it in public, too) which is why he made no endorsement in that race.
Got a link to Thune agreement for recess appointments? Scott agreed in public almost immediately but not Thune nor Cornyn that I saw.
No link but I remember reading about him agreeing to allowing recess appointments. Can’t tell you the language, exactly.
Like I said, I would bet that Trump got that out of him in order to not publicly endorse Scott. That would be my guess, since Trump was so insistent on the need for recess appointments as a fundamental part of the process.
I see what you are referring to. Sen Scott was very whole hearted in agreement to Trump demanding recess appointments. Thune only agreed that ‘all options are on the table, including recess appointments’.
The key context is Trump wanting a near immediate recess in January to put his nominees into position. That ain’t happening. Would there maybe/possibly be some odd scenario that Thune actually followed through on his very tepid statement to go into recess? I highly doubt it but I suppose never say never. Even today Thune was speaking very broadly about working with the President to get his agenda implemented… and that doesn’t mean Gaetz is 100% required to get it done. Very wishy washy DC speak IMO. Maybe I am wrong, I hope so and the Senate does go into immediate recess in January and every nominee gets into place.
Of course it ain’t happening. I don’t remember Trump ever wanting one, but if he did then I hope someone explained how stupid it would be. The new Senate is going to have a full agenda of urgent business, including all the confirmations that can be passed, and can’t possibly go on a several-week vacation right away. I don’t see how there’s be time for a recess any time before March at the earliest. And you don’t want to be waiting that long to install your AG.
Congress doesn’t typically adjourn until Summer. If Trump made a recess appointment – presuming Thune didn’t call pro forma sessions to block him, Gaetz could only serve for the remainder of that legislative session, which would expire on (or about) January 3rd, 2026. Gaetz would be AG for less than 6-months, at most.
No, recess appointments expire at the end of the next session, so one made at the first opportunity in 2025 would last until Jan-3-2027.
There are TWO legislative sessions in each Congress. Both begin in January. You’re conflating a congressional session with a legislative session. They’re two different things. A new ‘Congress’ begins every two years. But, legislative sessions begin every January (it used to be every March for much of US history)
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/DatesofSessionsofCongress.htm
No, I’m not conflating anything. Recess appointments last until the end of the next session. So an appointment made during the 2025 session will last until the end of the 2026 session, on Jan 3, 2027.
Ya, I voted for Trump, but what a schmuck he is. All he does is watch
TV looking for who praises him.
Oh, he also wins unwinnable elections.
You forgot that one.
This is obviously an in-your-face nomination to signal the Dems and GOPe that it will not be business as usual with the DC establishment calling all the shots. There is no way that any legitimate candidate for AG is going to get 60 votes in the Senate, so Trump is going an alternate path.
What this will do is take heat off of Trump’s other nominees and perhaps even get a deal with Thune and the GOPe to call a recess to appoint other cabinet heads in exchange for dropping Gaetz.
Trump is basically going on offense and will force Thune to declare a position. It Thune decides to show his cards early to thwart Trump from implementing the agenda that the people voted for then hopefully Trump just runs right over him. I have read that the President has the power to call a congressional recess. If Thune follows in McConnell’s path and attempt to block Trump’s appointments, then let the fur fly.
He doesn’t need 60 votes, only 50.
that is IF he gets cloture
There’s no filibuster on nominations.
There is some speculation out there that he might not even make it out of committee. He’s made a LOT of enemies, even in the Senate. It seems inevitable that seating him via recess appointment instead of submitting him to the normal confirmation process would make a lot more, likely including for Trump because senators are notorious for their sensitivity to any perceived slight to their prerogatives. Insisting on a recess appointment might lead Thune to become another Turtle, and continue the practice of keeping the Senate in permanent session.
No, the president can’t just “call a Congressional recess” whenever he likes. That would be a tyrannical power that the constitution’s framers were very conscious of. The kings of England, and then the UK, used to do this and that is why, as Hamilton pointed out in Federalist #69: “Fourthly; the President can only adjourn the national Legislature in the single case of disagreement about the time of adjournment. The British monarch may prorogue or even dissolve the Parliament. The Governor of New-York may also prorogue the Legislature of this State for a limited time; a power which in certain situations may be employed to very important purposes.”
National Review legal contributor Ed Whelan posted on social media about a rumored plan for Donald Trump to exercise his authority under Article II, section 3 of the Constitution and force Congress to adjourn.
Again, he has no such power, except in the very rare (as in, never happened yet) case that both houses have voted to adjourn, but they get into a deadlock over the end-date and each refuses to budge. Then all the president does is pick a date. But if both houses have not already voted to adjourn the president has no power.
Whelan’s article pointed me at two more obstacles to such appointments:
1. The Pay Act, which would prevent such appointments from being paid.
2. Scalia’s concurrence in Canning, which was joined by Thomas, Roberts, and Alito. At the time the court’s majority overruled their arguments and found that recess appointments can be made during an adjournment of at least 10 days, and in extraordinary circumstances perhaps even shorter, but never shorter than three days; and that it doesn’t matter when the vacancy arose.
But the court has changed since 2014, and if Trump were to make such appointments during even a 20-day adjournment, let alone for vacancies that existed while the senate was in session, you can be sure the Democrats would immediately run to SCOTUS and ask the current court to override the Canning majority and adopt Scalia’s opinion.
The three existing justices who voted with Scalia then would presumably do the same now, and likely so would at least two more, if not three. Some or all of the leftist three might even join them, just to screw Trump. So a practice which (as the concurrence points out didn’t really exist until 1921) would come to a permanent end, not just for Trump but for every future president.
Note Scalia pointing out that Congress passed the Pay Act in 1863 in order to protest an appointment that Lincoln made. Its sponsors said that if the president was going to ignore the constitution they didn’t have any practical means of stopping such appointments, but they could make them rare by providing that such appointees can’t be paid.
The president’s power to break a deadlock between the houses about how long an adjournment should last seems to have been put in because the framers couldn’t imagine any other last-resort mechanism to resolve such a conflict. And they thought giving the power to the president would give the houses an incentive to come to an agreement; which seems to have worked, since in 237 years there has never been a case where the president had to intervene.
It certainly wasn’t intended to give the president a substantive power that he could use to his advantage.
Call me simple, but anyone is better than the sniveling weasel who currently holds that position.
Oh God, just when this can’t get any dumber…
NEWS: Multiple sources tell RCP that Rep. @MattGaetz is expected to resign his House seat ahead of a contentious confirmation battle to be Trump’s attorney general.
https://twitter.com/PhilipWegmann/status/1856848009046220846
The Hill and several other outlets and MAGA-friendly journos are now reporting Gaetz has resigned with immediate effect. Good Lord.
Gaetz has resigned to end the ethics probe,
It makes no sense for that to be the reason.
That would be insane
Fox News confirming Gaetz has resigned per Speake Johnson. What in the world is going on? GOP now has a 1-seat majority.
https://twitter.com/aishahhasnie/status/1856850000665252270
I know that Matt Gaetz is a mega guy and everything but I don’t think it’s very smart to be pulling anybody out of the House of Representatives with such a slim majority.
Every President nerds a hyper-partisan “Wingman” at DOJ. Leftist Eric Holder fulfilled that role for the lightgiver; Trump’s first term choices of Sessions and Barr proved Obama was right.
Sauce for the Goose – eat it media!
“The House Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz since 2021.”
Seriously? 3 years of investigations and they haven’t come up with anything solid enough to even censure him with? Especially considering that the Justice Department investigated the same allegations and declined to charge him two years ago.
Can you say “political witch hunt”? Sure you can.
What that tells me is that he’s pissing off all the right people, which is an attribute that I’m sure Trump admires.
I have no idea if Gaetz has or has not engaged in any inappropriate behavior. But, the length of this investigation that has, thus far, produced no resolution is not out of the ordinary. Investigations by The Committee on House Ethics often take 2 or 3-years, sometimes more. The investigation into Jesse Jackson, Jr. began in 2009. They never produced a final report as they were circumvented by an eventual federal indictment in November 2012. That was four years of investigating without any report ever filed even though Jackson’s behavior was so egregious he was eventually convicted in federal court and sentenced to a decade in prison.