Dem
47
GOP
53
Readers will probably recall the occasion when Dick Cheney shot his friend while they were hunting together. Because Cheney in particular, and the Bush team in general, preferred to be secretive, they tried to keep the story from seeing the light of day. What happened, instead, was a steady drip, drip, drip of information that kept the story in the news for weeks and weeks, before everything ended up coming out, after all. It would have been better to just tear the band-aid off, and to let everything out all at once.
We bring this up because the Matt Gaetz story is starting to acquire a similar feel. The House Ethics Committee is still debating what to do, if anything, with the report it put together on... whatever bad things he did. Yesterday, the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), came out and said that the report should be released to the public or, at very least, to the senators who would be considering Gaetz for the top law enforcement position in the nation.
Meanwhile, while the members of Congress argue, dirt about Gaetz continues to leak. There's so much of it, in fact, that it's hard to know what is new information, and what is a repeat of past dirt. The latest is that a lawyer named Joel Leppard is talking to any media outlet that will have him, claiming that two of his clients attended between five and ten group sex parties at which Gaetz had sexual relations with both prostitutes and underage women, and also consumed cocaine and other drugs. These parties reportedly took place while Gaetz was serving in Congress. Perhaps former representative Madison Cawthorn was not making it up when he claimed that "unnamed" Freedom Caucus colleagues invited him to partake in cocaine-fueled orgies.
In the end, we don't see how Gaetz' nomination as AG, and possibly any other future political aspirations he has (governor of Florida?), can go forward unless the Ethics Committee's report is made available. If he indulged in cocaine and prostitutes, that's not great for America's top cop, but it might not be career-ending. After all, Marion Berry did the same, and he even got reelected afterward. On the other hand, if Gaetz is a serial pedophile, or something like that, then anyone who votes for him, only to have that come out AFTER he is confirmed, could have their own careers destroyed.
So, the senators are simply going to have to see the report, if Trump is going to go forward with the nomination. The alternative, of course, is for Gaetz to withdraw from consideration. Members of the Senate are trying to write that message on the wall in big, red letters; the latest is that a majority of Senate Republicans are saying, off the record of course, that they don't think Gaetz will be approved. To be more precise, roughly 30 of them are apparently inclined to vote "nay." If even a quarter of those people actually stick with that, then Gaetz is doomed.
At the moment, Donald Trump is in denial of this reality, and is working the phones to try to strongarm Gaetz through. If Trump pulls it off, then it will be pretty clear confirmation that he's got all the power, and the Senate is just a rubber stamp. On the other hand, if the nomination gets withdrawn, or Gaetz suddenly decides he "doesn't want to pursue this position," then we'll know there are limits to Trump's reality distortion field.
As we have noted, Gaetz could keep his job, minus a little seniority, by showing up to be sworn in on the first day of the 119th Congress. After all, he has been duly elected to his seat for the period 2023-25. That said, if he does so, then the ethics report will surely be released. And if the goal was to keep that hidden, at all costs, well, he can't have his cake and eat it, too. (Z)