President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to become the next attorney general, a surprise choice.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that Congressman Matt Gaetz, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The Attorney General of the United States,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social. “Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.”
Gaetz said in a statement that “it will be an honor” to serve in the role.
The Florida Republican was an unexpected choice whose name had not been on short lists of candidates in the days since Trump won the election. Other contenders had included former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, and John Ratcliffe, whom Trump ended up nominating as CIA director.
Gaetz, an ardent Trump supporter, conservative firebrand, and occasional subject of controversy in the House, will need to survive a confirmation fight in the Republican-controlled Senate before he assumes the position.
Trump has set high expectations for his attorney general after his last two, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, fell out of good graces with him over the Trump-Russia collusion investigation and the former president’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, respectively.
In Trump’s new vision for the DOJ, he has vowed to seek retribution against those who have waged legal fights against him. He campaigned on the promises that he would deport millions of immigrants who crossed into the country illegally; fight diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and carry out a large-scale pardon operation for Jan. 6, 2021, defendants.
Gaetz, who has promoted those initiatives throughout his tenure on the House Judiciary Committee, is expected to carry out these plans if confirmed.
Gaetz would also aim to root out career employees at the DOJ who do not align with his viewpoints. Mark Paoletta, an influential conservative lawyer in Washington, has been working behind the scenes to map out what Trump’s new DOJ will look like and has placed a particular emphasis on only retaining compliant officials and attorneys. Trump frequently referred to perceived insubordinate career lawyers at the DOJ during his first term as members of the “deep state” or “swamp.”
Asked by the Washington Examiner for comment on his ideas for a Trump DOJ, Paoletta pointed to a lengthy statement he issued on X on Wednesday in which he warned current department employees to find a new job if they are not going to carry out the president’s agenda.
“If the president wants to deport illegal aliens, secure the border, ban race-based ‘affirmative action’ and DEI, investigate antisemitism, halt Big Tech censorship, grant pardons and commutations to Jan 6th defendants, he has every right to expect that these perfectly lawful policies are implemented, and it is absolutely unacceptable for career employees to seek to thwart this policy agenda,” Paoletta wrote.
Cleta Mitchell, another longtime conservative lawyer who helped Trump challenge the 2020 election results, also told the Washington Examiner that she hopes to see an attorney general who is willing to carry out mass firings.
“Whoever is AG has to have a steel spine because he/she has to fire hundreds of people,” Mitchell said. “Everyone in Civil Rights Division and Voting Section. And likely the Criminal Division.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s critics have raised fears that the president-elect will target his political enemies out of vengeance, an idea that stems from Trump’s steady stream of online attacks on special counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and others who are involved in the former president’s criminal prosecutions and civil cases or are generally critical of him.
In Truth Social posts, Trump has called for Smith’s arrest, accused James of “fraud” and said she should be prosecuted, said former Rep. Liz Cheney is “GUILTY OF TREASON” and should go to jail, and asserted that Vice President Kamala Harris should be “impeached and prosecuted.”
Gaetz has frequently elevated similar sentiments.
Barbara McQuade, a former Obama-appointed U.S. attorney from Michigan, left the DOJ during a wave of resignations under Sessions in 2017. She told the Washington Examiner that she hoped Trump’s remarks about his political rivals were “bluster” but said she worried about the GOP-controlled Senate voting in favor of an attorney general who will ignore “post-Watergate norms.”
“Those norms require that the Justice Department act independently from the White House,” McQuade said. “Moreover, DOJ’s Justice Manual contains principles of federal prosecution that prohibit political considerations in making charging decisions. I would hope that career professionals at the Justice Department would refuse to obey any illegal order.”
Gaetz, who was elected to Congress in 2016, came under federal investigation over sex trafficking allegations, but the DOJ decided last year not to prosecute him. Gaetz also led former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster, plunging the House into crisis mode without a speaker for several weeks last year.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The House Ethics Committee is in the midst of conducting its own investigation of Gaetz related to sex trafficking, and Rep. Michael Guest (R-TX), a member of the panel, said Wednesday that it will continue approaching the investigation in a business-as-usual manner when asked if the committee would pick up the pace of its inquiry.
“No, we’re not going to do anything to expedite this,” Guest said. “Once the investigation is complete, the Ethics Committee will meet as a committee. We will then return our findings. If Matt Gaetz is still a member of Congress, then that will occur. If Matt has resigned, then this ethics investigation, like many others in the past, will end.”
Cami Mondeaux contributed to this report.
