WASHINGTON — President-elect
Donald Trump
said Wednesday that he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.,
to be the 87th attorney general of the United States in a move that could fill the nation’s top law enforcement position with an ardent supporter who was once criminally
investigated by the department he would oversee.
No charges were filed in the case, which was investigated by the FBI and centered on allegations of sex trafficking. It
ended last year
. Afterward, Gaetz called for abolishing the bureau.
“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund, get rid of, abolish the FBI,” Gaetz
said at last year’s
Conservative Political Action Conference.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Wednesday evening that Gaetz offered his resignation from the House. The letter has not yet gone into effect because it has not been announced on the House floor.
“I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately of Congress,” Johnson told reporters. “That caught us by surprise a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was, and he said, ‘Well, you can’t have too many absences.’”
There will eventually be a special election to fill Gaetz’s seat, and Johnson said that “under Florida State law, there’s about an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.”
Trump’s announcement Wednesday comes at a critical juncture for the
Justice Department
and the FBI, which he has relentlessly attacked for years, particularly after Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith charged him with four federal felonies in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. That case, though, is
already winding down
.
Trump revealed his pick for attorney general
on T
ruth Social
, saying Gaetz would “end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”
Gaetz has a law degree but has never worked as a prosecutor. He briefly practiced law in Florida before entering politics. A longtime Trump loyalist,
he has repeatedly attacked the Justice Department and the FBI, both of which he would oversee as attorney general
if the Republican-led Senate
confirms him
.
The bipartisan House Ethics Committee has been looking into whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use. But that probe would come to an end with Gaetz’s resignation from Congress since the panel does not have jurisdiction over former House members.
Gaetz told the committee in September that he is done cooperating with the panel, which he said asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the last seven years.
In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz blasted the investigation as “not the business of Congress.”
“They’re just nosy is what they are, and it’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News at the end of September.
Trump’s pick to succeed Attorney General Merrick Garland unnerved prosecutors in the Justice Department, as well as former FBI officials.
Many have been waiting in recent days to see whom Trump would select. Gaetz was a surprise, and his name was not among those that widely circulated this week as potential nominees.
A former senior FBI official expressed astonishment that Gaetz, who accompanied Trump on his plane back to Florida after Wednesday’s visit to Washington, may oversee the country’s two most powerful federal law enforcement agencies. The official noted that the conspiracy theories that Gaetz has spread about the bureau are false.
“I’m still in shock,” the person said. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
DOJ officials called the pick “insane” and argued that Gaetz was the least-qualified nominee in the history of the department.
“It’s laughable,” said one senior Justice Department official, adding that Gaetz “shouldn’t be confirmable.”
A former senior FBI official also said
they hoped senators would not confirm Gaetz.
“I just have to hope that there are three or four senators out there that won’t confirm,” said the former official.
If he is confirmed, the former FBI official predicted Gaetz will not find the conspiracies he claims exist in the bureau.
“They’re going to realize that things aren’t as bad as they thought they were,” the person said.
The source went on to express concern for FBI agents, saying, “They’re hard-working people who are trying to do the right thing.”
Asked about the likelihood of Gaetz’s making it through the Senate confirmation process, a source close to Trump predicted that voters would pressure their senators to vote for him.
“The American people made clear that they want President Trump to remake Washington, and Rep. Gaetz is the perfect man to restore the DOJ to greatness,” said the source, who was granted anonymity to share internal thinking. “Senators will hear from their voters who support the congressman.”
Trump allies have called for the Justice Department to criminally investigate
Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James
. Smith has led criminal prosecutions of Trump in two federal cases, while James won a $355 million civil verdict against Trump’s companies.
As attorney general, Gaetz would be in a strong position to determine the course of Jan. 6 riot cases.
After the riot, Gaetz
claimed without evidence
that it was antifa, not a pro-Trump mob that
believed Trump’s lies
about the 2020 election, that attacked the Capitol. One Jan. 6 rioter — one of the first men to breach the Capitol — even posted about Gaetz’s plan to challenge Electoral College votes, which Gaetz had laid out at a Turning Points USA summit in late 2020.
Another Jan. 6 defendant, Brandon Straka, has said he was “regularly” in contact with Gaetz during a Twitter Space in early 2023, as Gaetz was steering the outcome of the House speaker’s race.
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