Matt Gaetz on Thursday dropped out of consideration to be Donald Trump’s new Attorney General, and readers as far west as Topeka might have heard the whooshing noise, as Senate Republicans in Washington sighed in collective relief.
Mr. Gaetz was an awful choice for many reasons, and the question is what lesson Mr. Trump draws from this mistake.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said Mr. Gaetz “did not want to be a distraction for the Administration,” but that he “was doing very well.”
He wishes. On Wednesday the House Ethics Committee declined to release a report on Mr. Gaetz’s alleged misconduct, but Democrats said they’d try to force a floor vote, and lawyers for Mr. Gaetz’s accusers have been talking to the press anyway.
Give credit to the Republican Senators, including John Cornyn of Texas, who made clear that even under a GOP President they planned to take seriously their constitutional duty of vetting cabinet nominees.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds told CNN that seeing the House report on Mr. Gaetz could speed confirmation hearings. “If it’s not available and we have to recreate it ourselves,” he said, “that would delay our ability to make a decision.”
Instead Mr. Trump cut his losses on a bad nomination, and in the end this will help him.
Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation by the Senate was seriously in doubt. Although he denies wrongdoing, the hearings would have included claims that Mr. Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old in 2017, an embarrassing and damaging spectacle for Mr. Trump.
A yes vote by GOP Senators in swing states would have been thrown back at them in attack ads in 2026 or 2028.
Does Mr. Trump recognize now that the Republican Senate is going to give his cabinet nominees a fair hearing, but not a complete pass? Maybe he does.
On Thursday night he went a different direction, announcing that his new AG nominee is Pam Bondi, who was Florida’s Attorney General from 2011-2019.
“Pam was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years, where she was very tough on Violent Criminals,” he said on Truth Social. “Then, as Florida’s first female Attorney General, she worked to stop the trafficking of deadly drugs.”
In Florida Ms. Bondi was among the state AGs who sued to block ObamaCare. She’s a serious lawyer, unlike Mr. Gaetz, and the President-elect may trust her because she was part of his impeachment defense team in 2020.
Mr. Trump wants loyalists but he also needs competent deputies who won’t distract from his second-term goals.
On that score he should be weighing whether to stick with Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. For Labor Secretary, he’s considering Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who supports the union giveaway Pro Act.
