Trump is determined to see Gaetz confirmed as AG despite controversies

By CNN Newsource

Published November 16, 2024 3:29 pm

By Kristen Holmes, Lauren Fox, Pamela Brown, Jamie Gangel and Steve Contorno, CNN

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is pressing forward with his decision to put forward former Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general, despite widespread unease on Capitol Hill about entrusting the Justice Department to a figure with limited legal experience who has recently faced investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump’s insistence on the controversial pick has drawn warnings from allies and lawmakers, who caution that Gaetz faces an uphill climb to secure the 51 votes needed for Senate confirmation. There is growing concern, too, that the spectacle of a Gaetz confirmation hearing might overshadow the priorities on which Trump has spent the last two years campaigning and for which he received a mandate to push through with his victory this month.

Yet the president-elect has made clear that he views Gaetz as the most important member of the Cabinet he is quickly assembling, sources with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told CNN, and he considers the nomination of the former Florida congressman an urgent priority for the incoming GOP majority in the Senate.

Trump wants Gaetz confirmed “100%,” a source told CNN. “He is not going to back off. He’s all in.”

Trump made his pick for attorney general hastily amid dissatisfaction with other potential candidates, but he has nevertheless grown enamored with the idea of having a political arsonist like Gaetz overseeing his promises to dismantle the Justice Department. He also believes Gaetz is uniquely positioned to defend the Trump administration on television, an attribute prioritized by the president-elect. Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general — his defense attorney Todd Blanche — will carry out the day-to-day work of overseeing the Justice Department’s more than 40 agencies and 115,000 employees.

But Gaetz’s selection was almost immediately complicated by an existing House Ethics Committee probe into allegations of misconduct, including “sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.” Gaetz resigned from Congress after Trump’s announcement and shortly before the committee was expected to release details of its findings. Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having sex with a minor or paying for sex.

An attorney who represents two of the women who were witnesses in the investigation into Gaetz said on Friday that one of his clients saw the congressman having sex with a minor.

Gaetz was also the subject of a separate Department of Justice sex-crimes investigation that ultimately ended without any charges.

But Republicans are aware that Trump often tends to dig in when challenged.

“Telling Donald Trump something isn’t going to happen is a surefire way of him doubling down,” his former press secretary Sean Spicer said.

Gaetz’s is not the only Cabinet pick that has generated concerns. Several members of Trump’s transition team were stunned to learn that his choice for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was investigated after an alleged sexual assault in 2017. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has denied the allegation through a lawyer and has spent the last few days defending his character on social media.

The elevation of former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services and former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence will also test the Republican Senate majority. Kennedy has amassed a devoted following through outlandish public health claims and is also a former Democrat with some views that clash with Republican orthodoxy. The intelligence community, meanwhile, has raised concerns about Gabbard’s qualifications and history of attacks on the agencies she will be tasked with working alongside.

While members of Trump’s team are unfazed by those concerns, they acknowledge the challenge of getting all his picks to 51 votes in the Senate. Some Trump allies have floated the idea of recess appointments, effectively bypassing the Senate, but it’s not clear whether that is a viable path.

Trump is prepared to fight for Gaetz, sources told CNN, to ensure he has a deeply loyal ally in a job he believes is a cornerstone of his incoming administration.

In recent days, Gaetz has been reaching out directly to Republican senators, according to a source familiar with the efforts. Meanwhile, the transition team has conveyed to congressional Republicans that it is fully aware of the intense scrutiny surrounding Gaetz’s selection and the steep path to Senate confirmation. Yet, for now, the message is resolute: Gaetz’s nomination remains firmly on track, a Senate aide said.

The pushback to the Gaetz pick played out swiftly on Capitol Hill, where several Senate Republicans have made no secret they believe he will have to overcome significant hurdles to get the votes for confirmation. In the hours after he was named for the post, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called him an “unserious” pick. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she was “shocked” by the choice, and Sen. Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, warned, “He’s gonna have a lot of work to do.”

Other Republicans pointed to Gaetz’s history as a rabble-rouser in the House, with North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer saying that members may have questions about Gaetz’s role in ousting Kevin McCarthy from the speakership in 2023. There is ample footage, too, of Republican lawmakers speaking ill of Gaetz over the years, including recounts of some appalling interactions.

In one video that has circled widely since Gaetz was name, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin told CNN’s Manu Raju that Gaetz showed videos on the House floor “of the girls that he had slept with.”

“He’d brag about how he would crush ED medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night,” Mullin said.

Still, in a sign of Trump’s pull over his party, Mullin vowed to work closely with the president-elect to confirm his new government.

“I completely trust President Trump’s decision-making on this one,” Mullin said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

The choice has also led to tension between House and Senate Republicans over the fate of the ethics investigation, which was stalled and potentially permanently shelved by Gaetz’s resignation from Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he is opposed to the committee releasing the investigation even as Republican senators such as South Dakota’s Mike Rounds and John Cornyn of Texas have said they want to see what is in the House ethics probe before deciding Gaetz’s fate.

“We should be able to get ahold of it, and we should have access to it one way or another based on the way that we do all of these nominations,” Rounds told CNN on Friday.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is expected to take the helm of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January, has been noncommittal on whether he would request the report, telling CNN last week that his staff will undertake a vetting process for all the nominees who come before his committee. Pushed on whether that would include the report, Grassley would not say. The Democratic-controlled Judiciary Committee formally requested the House Ethics Committee report already, but Democrats will lose control of the committee in January.

The Gaetz saga is exactly the kind of early confirmation battle that could test newly elected GOP Senate leader John Thune, who will be under immense pressure to push Trump’s nominees through in an effort to mend fences with him. The two have had an up and down relationship. The president-elect has made clear he’d like to have Thune pursue recess appointments, in which the Senate goes into recess to allow Trump to appoint his Cabinet members without the chamber’s vote.

But that process would require a majority of the Senate — meaning a vast majority of the GOP — to agree, something that Thune himself has suggested could be difficult if members are opposed to certain nominees.