WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump has had few defenders in Congress as reliable as Matt Gaetz, who has railed against accuser after accuser for alleged bias against the president-elect and emphatically amplified the Republican cry that the criminal investigation into him “witch hunts.”
That kinship was rewarded Wednesday when Trump named Gaetz as his pick for attorney general, turning to a conservative loyalist instead of more established attorneys seen as contenders.
In announcing his selection of Gaetz as attorney general and John Ratcliffe as CIA director a day earlier, Trump underscored the premium he places on loyalty, citing both men’s support during the Russia investigation as crucial to their qualifications and expressed his expectation that the leaders in his administration would have to function not only as the president’s protector, but also as an instrument of retaliation.
The dynamic matters at a time when Trump, who will come to power on two federal indictments that are expected to disappear soon and a Supreme Court opinion blessing a president’s exclusive authority over the Justice Department, has threatened retaliation against alleged opponents.
“Matt will root out systemic corruption at DOJ and return the department to its true mission: fighting crime and upholding our democracy and Constitution. We must have honesty, integrity and transparency at DOJ,” Trump wrote in a social media post about Gaetz, a Republican from Florida.
Trump’s rhetoric reflects a reversal in approach by President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly taken a hands-off approach to the Justice Department even as he faced a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified information and as his son, Hunter, was indicted and convicted on tax and gun charges.
Democrats immediately sounded the alarm, with Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying Gaetz “would be a disaster” in part because of Trump’s threat to use the Justice Department “to retaliate against his political enemies .” The chairman of Common Cause, a good government group, called the selection “shocking” and “a serious threat to the fair and equal enforcement of the law in our country.” Even several Senate Republicans expressed concern about the Gaetz choice.
That Trump would openly credit Gaetz’s role in “defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic government corruption and weaponization” is not entirely surprising. In his first term, Trump fired an FBI director who refused to pledge loyalty to him during a private White House dinner and an attorney general who withdrew from the Justice Department’s investigation into possible ties between Russia and his presidential 2016 campaign.
“I believe this selection indicates that President-elect Trump was looking for an attorney general whose views closely aligned with him regarding the appropriate role of the Department of Justice,” said former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz.
Ratcliffe, who served as Trump’s director of national intelligence in the final months of his first term, rose to prominence on Capitol Hill as a staunch defender of Trump. He was part of Trump’s advisory team during his first impeachment hearings in 2019 and pointedly questioned multiple witnesses about the Russia investigation — including an FBI agent who led the investigation but also exchanged anti-Trump text messages with a colleague.
That work was credited by Trump in his selection announcement, in which he praised Ratcliffe for “exposing fake Russian collusion” and “a fighter for truth and honesty with the American public.”
Gaetz would be the first attorney general in decades without Justice Department experience, and in recent years he himself became embroiled in a federal sex trafficking investigation that ended without criminal charges.
Hours before the announcement, Gaetz said in a social media post that there must be a “full press in court against this ARMED government that has turned against our people.” He added, “And if that means abolishing all the three-letter agencies, from the FBI to the ATF, then I’m ready to get to work!” If appointed attorney general, he would oversee both the FBI and ATF.
To drive home the theme of revenge, billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk weighed in on Gaetz’s nomination with a message that read, “The hammer of justice is coming.”
Gaetz has used the congressional seat he first won in 2016 to rail against the Justice Department, repeatedly decrying what he — and Trump — say is a criminal justice system biased against conservatives. He has criticized law enforcement officials he views as openly anti-Trump or ineffective in protecting Trump’s interests.
When Robert Mueller visited Capitol Hill to discuss the findings of the Russia investigation, Gaetz condemned the prosecutor for leading a team that the congressman said was “so biased.” Trump’s Justice Department appointed a special counsel, John Durham, to investigate flaws in the Russia investigation, but Gaetz also scolded Durham for failing to uncover enough damaging information about the FBI’s investigation into Trump to bring.
“For the people like the (committee) chairman who put their trust in you, I think you let them down. I think you’ve let the country down. You are one of the obstacles to the real accountability we need,” Gaetz said.
He has expressed outright anger at FBI Director Christopher Wray, who snapped at him last year that FBI applicants in Florida “deserve better than you,” and at the current attorney general, Merrick Garland. In 2022, Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Both investigations resulted in indictments that are expected to be completed before Trump takes office. Smith, too, is likely to be gone by the time Gaetz arrives, and a new FBI director is also expected to be named given Trump’s continued dissatisfaction with Wray, his own appointee.
“None of us can predict exactly what will happen there,” said Ryan Fayhee, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor.
He added: “I think it’s more a matter of the department remaining independent and largely resting on the broad shoulders of the career prosecutors and officers who have held themselves to the highest standards.”
