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A Theory On The Matt Gaetz Nomination
President Trump’s decision to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz for Attorney General was quite a surprise, to say the least. Equally surprising was Gaetz’s decision to immediately resign from Congress rather than wait for Senate confirmation to his new post. Both of these moves have inspired much noise from the chattering class which is easily wrapped up in palace intrigue. After all, if Senate confirmation is in doubt even a little bit why not hang on to the House seat until the thing is certain?
Rep. Gaetz explained his quick resignation by saying that doing so allows his seat to be filled by special election as soon as January 3rd. Most talking heads and just about everyone on X seem pretty darn certain that the real reason Gaetz resigned was to prevent the Ethics Committee from releasing a report on its investigation of the now former member of Congress. Apparently, now that Gaetz is out of Congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate ethics complaints about him or release the report of their already completed investigation.
Conventional wisdom, such as it is, has coalesced around the idea that Matt Gaetz has little to no chance of being confirmed by the Senate due to the many allegations against him (which he has vociferously denied), including allegations of having engaged in sexual activity and drug use with minors. According to the talking heads and tweeting tweeters, the Ethics Committee report will be damning and its release would sink any chance Gaetz might have to be confirmed as the next Attorney General of The United States.
There are so many things to pick apart here. The first and most obvious fact to consider is that the Biden DOJ looked into the allegations against Gaetz and found nothing to prosecute. If the Biden DOJ/FBI decided there’s no “there” there, well, they’re probably right. Some will say the lack of federal charges merely proves they couldn’t find evidence he committed a federal crime. Be that as it may, we all know that Merrick Garland and his merry band of politically weaponized investigators wouldn’t hesitate to pass along to state and local law enforcement evidence they found of any crimes that could be prosecuted in state or local jurisdictions. The fact that this didn’t happen is telling.
Furthermore, it’s ridiculous to think that Gaetz’s resignation would prevent the public from seeing the Ethics Committee report. There is zero chance that the report won’t be leaked by Democrat committee members or their staffers. Zero. Zilch. The report will be leaked in a matter of days at most. Gaetz knows this full well so there’s no reason for him to resign to prevent the report from dropping. Even if the report is somehow miraculously not leaked on the House side, members of the Senate will demand access to the report before conducting hearings or voting on confirmation. Does anyone think it won’t be leaked by a Senate Judiciary Committee member or staffer?
If the report is destined to be made public by leakers from the House Ethics Committee or Senate Judiciary Committee, and if the report is going to be so damning as to automatically sink all hope of confirmation, why would President Trump bother nominating Gaetz to begin with? It seems unlikely that he would, so there must be something else at play; something that makes both Trump and Gaetz confident of Senate confirmation.
President Trump is a smart guy, and he’s surrounded by a bunch of smart people. They can do math and they know the score. There is little to no chance that Trump nominated Gaetz without knowing what’s in the Ethics report. The fact that Trump nominated Gaetz and that Gaetz immediately resigned is House seat indicates they both know full well the Ethics report is a nothing burger at worst and maybe even a full exoneration.
If this theory is correct, the Republican Senators currently croaking out condemnations and promises to vote against Gaetz are walking into a neat little trap of their own making. By hanging their opposition on the supposedly damning report, they’re setting themselves up to have no basis for opposing confirmation if and when the report becomes public and shows the allegations to be unsubstantiated or abjectly false. At that point, they’ll have little choice but to go along with making Matt Gaetz the next Attorney General.
I have no inside information and don’t pretend to be an expert analyst, but so far I haven’t heard any better explanation. I don’t buy that Trump did it on a whim without consulting his team or that it’s all a setup to make it easier to confirm the real nominee after Gaetz withdraws. Those theories make great fodder for palace intrigue but don’t seem the least bit plausible. Trump knows he’s got a solid nominee because the Deep State took its shot and missed. Again.
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They can release the report even if the oily one is no longer a member.
I found the Gaetz appointment baffling. It is not as if there are no heavyweight conservative judges, former US attorneys etc who could step into the AG position with very little adjustment and happily clean house.
Reform would have to be a continuous two-tiered operation — congressional probes and corrective action by the USAG. Some admin and bureaucratic political skills are required.
Obama politicized the DOJ. The Civil Rights division became his ideological praetorian guard. On occasions when a scandal required the appearance of investigation, somebody from the Civil Rights Division would be tapped to guarantee the right outcome. Those attorneys brazenly refused to act to protect Asian students from discrimination or to defend any government policies mandated by law they did not like which is kind of the job of a government lawyer.
I think it is possible that there was not a lot of consultation and deep thought in this. Trump sees Gaetz as a loyal, smart bomb-thrower and may just want him to disrupt an openly corrupt department. But going to bureaucratic war with a bunch of burrowed-in smart federal lawyers may requires a more complex skill set–and allies.
You have put forth a very plausible scenario, Mr. Ferguson. Is this what people refer to as four-dimensional chess? I do not know…have never played chess.
I don’t believe Trump is that smart or that disciplined. But I do think opposition to Gaetz will have little to do with any actual ‘ethics’ violations. If the argument is that he won’t be confirmed because he won’t be confirmed, that could just as easily become the conviction that he will be confirmed because he will be. It’s just folks with no principles blowing in the wind.
What some people like most about Gaetz is how much his detractors hate him.
Look to the deputy AG nominees – those are the people who will make the real reforms on a day to day basis.
I was never much of a chess player myself. I just think the facts that Trump made the nomination, Gaetz resigned his House seat immediately, and the opposition hangs just about entirely on the allegations under investigation by the Ethics Committee point to Trump and Gaetz knowing the results of the investigation aren’t going to be damaging.
You might not think he’s that disciplined, and that’s a pretty common view. What is the case for him not being that smart? I don’t think you do the things in business and politics that he has done by being not that smart.
Another issue concerning Gaetz is his instigating the downfall of McCarthy as Speaker, eventually leading to McCarthy’s retirement from Congress. McCarthy was there a long time and no doubt had his share of supporters who might want some revenge.
That is true, although McCarthy’s actual level of influence is questionable. He backed a bunch of primary challengers to Gaetz and others responsible for pushing him out of leadership. How did that go for him? The guy he backed against Gaetz got crushed. I haven’t checked the score on the others.
I think he’s plenty smart. I don’t think he’s smart enough to pull off the move you suggest he has. (I don’t think he has to be, either.)
Pulling off the move doesn’t even require smarts. It just requires someone with knowledge of the Ethics Committee report to have told Trump what’s in it.
It will be one more thing to infuriate the Beltway self-appointed seers and soothsayers. They still don’t get what is happening.
However, there are some people, including some on Ricochet, who seem to follow the old Democrat canard, “It’s not the nature of the evidence that matters, it’s the seriousness of the charges!”
I’m looking forward to Gaetz’s opening statement at his Senate confirmation hearing, which I expect will be a barnburner. It will be seen by the tens of millions of voters who gave Trump his governing mandate. Their reaction will be similar to that of the audience at the end of Lt. Col. Frank Slade’s Baird Prep speech in “Scent of a Woman”, and their intensity will register. End result: After some pro forma speechifying and such, along with the customary behind the scenes horse trading, a sufficient number of Senators will vote to confirm him.
Bingo!!
Ultimately, I don’t know enough about it, but I thought this was really, really juvenile. McCarthy was fine.