Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump wants a pliant attorney general who will follow his orders, with no regard for the law or the Constitution. He has found one in Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). This might end up being Trump's most controversial nomination, not even considering the years the DoJ spent going after Gaetz for transporting underage girls across state lines for sex, which is a felony. (In the end, the DoJ did not charge Gaetz.)
If Trump really intends to follow through on having the DoJ indict his enemies, he would need an AG to do this, and the pool of potential AGs willing to indict people on totally bogus charges is very small. Even people like Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr would draw the line at that.
Gaetz has a J.D. from William & Mary Law School and practiced law in Florida before being elected to the Florida state House. He ran for the U.S. House in 2016 in FL-01, which has a PVI of R+22. Once he won the primary, the rest was easy.
In 2020, Gaetz was deeply involved in the events of Jan. 6. He is an election denier and voted to overturn Trump's defeat. He also tried to pressure Mike Pence into throwing out electoral votes of states that voted for Joe Biden. Trump likes to shake things up and having an AG who most likely transported minors over state lines for sex and tried to overturn an election certainly breaks with precedent.
Gaetz is one of the most polarizing members of Congress. He and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) make a great team, but Gaetz leaves even Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) in the dust. He is very Trumpy and a real bombthrower.
Gaetz' confirmation is by no means assured. A number of senators were shocked to hear the nomination. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has expressed concern. In this case, that almost certainly means a "no" vote. When Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) was asked about Gaetz, he dodged the question. He might also be a "no" vote. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) rolled his eyes when asked about Gaetz. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) declined to comment. When you've lost Tom Cotton, you have lost. The confirmation hearing will be extremely angry and fraught. Gaetz might well go down, which would be a huge embarrassment to Trump. Of course, Trump should have checked this out with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and other friendly senators to get an idea in advance how the senators would react, but that's not his way.
Interestingly, Gaetz has already resigned his seat in the House. This is very unusual. Typically, a nominee keeps their current job as an insurance policy until they've been approved for the new job. That should hold doubly true for someone who might very well fail to be confirmed. Was the ethics investigation into Gaetz' behavior about to go public with something damning? Does he want to run for governor, unencumbered, but without his opponents saying he quit on his constituents for no reason? Something else? Only Matt Gaetz knows for sure. (V)