Matt Gaetz’s decision to step down for attorney general is great news. Ethics win | Opinion
Editor’s note: The decision by Matt Gaetz to withdraw his nomination for attorney general is a critical moment as the Donald Trump 2.0 administration takes shape. Politics and the Senate still matter.
Ick.
The first reaction to the nominee for the chief law enforcement officer of the United States should not be ick, but in the case of Matt Gaetz, there is no better word.
For years, the man has been surrounded by allegations of sex with teenagers, booty excursions to exotic locales, parties that feature drug use and shady dealings around prostitution. He dated a congressional intern while a congressman. His cohorts have turned into cooperating witnesses or been convicted themselves. He’s been under investigation by the Justice Department for longer than he was a practicing lawyer.
Though the Justice Department probe ended without charges, all these machinations are still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which was just about to vote to release its report before Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Gaetz dodged Justice Department prosecution in part due to the credibility problems of witnesses. It is no surprise that Gaetz surrounds himself with people who are not credible enough to be witnesses against him. That’s not an asset in our next attorney general.
Indeed, there’s a lot about Gaetz that is not an asset in an attorney general, like the time he tweeted to a lawyer about to testify to Congress against Donald Trump that Gaetz would expose the attorney’s extramarital affairs, a ham-handed effort at witness intimidation in broad daylight.
If there was one nice thing about the first Trump administration, it was that all the sex scandals were in the past. There was no fresh Pennsylvania Avenue predation.
Not anymore. Gaetz is one blue dress away from going on the sex offender registry. Fortunately for him, the Justice Department’s Robert F. Kennedy building down the street from the White House is not within 1,000 feet of a school. Perhaps that is why Gaetz spent the last few months of Trump 1.0 asking for a blanket pardon to protect him from the Justice Department sex trafficking probe.
Beyond the question of Gaetz’s dubious morality, he’s just not a serious guy. He practiced law for a hot minute before joining the Florida Legislature, where he coasted on his dad’s coattails. His achievements there were minimal.
Then he went to Congress, where his legislative achievements were nonexistent. His preferred activity was grandstanding and disruption, which peaked with his decision to derail House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s career in 2023 for the sin of trying to carry out the constitutional duties of Congress rather than posture and preen for Fox News.
Trump said in a statement Wednesday that he picked Gaetz because of his “focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. … Matt will end weaponized government, protect our borders, dismantle criminal organizations and restore America’s badly shattered faith and confidence in the Justice Department.”
For all his focus on achieving things, Gaetz has not successfully passed one law that reformed anything at the Justice Department. If Trump expects him to be more successful at focusing on achieving things from inside the Justice Department, there is nothing in Gaetz’s record supporting that.
While Gaetz has never managed anything bigger than a legislative staff, the Justice Department has 115,000 employees spread over 40 different organizations from the FBI and the tax prosecutors to environmental cops and local U.S. attorneys to the super-lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court. While Gaetz has focused on one little corner of Florida, the Justice Department operates in four dozen countries.
The problem with Matt Gaetz is not just that he is ethically unfit for a role of such power and trust in our government. It is that he is completely unqualified.
The last thing America needs is a Justice Department led by a man who matches Trump in his complete disconnect from decency.
This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Matt Gaetz’s decision to step down for attorney general is great news. Ethics win | Opinion."
