WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as the 87th attorney general of the United States, in a move that could fill the nation’s top law enforcement position with a fervent trailer who was once criminally investigated by the department he was supposed to oversee.
No charges were filed in the case, which was investigated by the FBI and focused on sex trafficking allegations. It ended last year. Afterwards, Gaetz called for the agency’s abolition.
“I don’t care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy, we either get this government back on our side or we defund, get rid of and abolish the FBI,” Gaetz said last year. the Conservative Political Action Conference.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Wednesday evening that Gaetz had tendered his resignation from the House of Representatives. The letter has not yet come into effect because it has not yet been announced in the House of Representatives.
“I think out of respect for us he has issued his letter of resignation to Congress with immediate effect,” Johnson told reporters. “That surprised us a little bit, but I asked him what the reasoning was and he said, ‘Well, you can’t be absent too often.'”
There will eventually be a special election to fill Gaetz’s seat, and Johnson said that “under Florida state law there is approximately an eight-week period to select and fill a vacant seat.”
Trump’s announcement Wednesday comes at a critical time for the Justice Department and the FBI, which he has relentlessly attacked for years, especially after Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with four federal crimes related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. However, that case is already winding down.
Trump unveiled his pick for attorney general on Truth Social, saying Gaetz would “end the gun-toting government, protect our borders, dismantle criminal organizations, and seriously destroy Americans’ faith and trust in the Justice Department.” recover.”
Gaetz has a law degree but has never worked as a prosecutor. He briefly practiced law in Florida before entering politics. A longtime Trump loyalist, he has repeatedly attacked the Justice Department and the FBI, which he would oversee as attorney general if the Republican-led Senate were to confirm him.
The bipartisan House Ethics Committee investigated whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use. But that investigation would end with Gaetz’s resignation from Congress because the panel has no jurisdiction over former members of the House of Representatives.
Gaetz told the committee in September that he was done working with the panel, which had asked him for a list of adult sexual partners over the past seven years.
In a letter to the committee and later to reporters, Gaetz denounced the investigation as “not the business of Congress.”
“They’re just curious, that’s none of their business,” Gaetz told NBC News in late September.
Trump’s choice to succeed Attorney General Merrick Garland unnerved Justice Department prosecutors, as well as former FBI officials.
Many have been waiting in recent days to see who Trump would select. Gaetz was a surprise, and his name was not among the names widely circulated as potential nominees this week.
A former senior FBI official expressed surprise that Gaetz, who accompanied Trump on his plane back to Florida after Wednesday’s visit to Washington, could oversee the nation’s two most powerful federal law enforcement agencies. The official noted that the conspiracy theories Gaetz has spread about the agency are false.
“I’m still in shock,” the person said. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
DOJ officials called the choice “insane” and argued that Gaetz was the least qualified nominee in the department’s history.
“It’s laughable,” a senior Justice Department official said, adding that Gaetz “should not be confirmed.”
A former senior FBI official also said they hoped senators would not confirm Gaetz.
“I just have to hope that there are three or four senators who don’t want to confirm it,” the former official said.
If confirmed, the former FBI official predicted that Gaetz will not find the conspiracies he claims exist in the bureau.
“They’re going to realize that things aren’t as bad as they thought,” the person said.
The source then expressed concern about FBI agents, saying, “They are hard-working people trying to do the right thing.”
Asked about the likelihood that Gaetz would make it through the Senate confirmation process, a source close to Trump predicted that voters would pressure their senators to vote for him.
“The American people have made it clear that they want President Trump to reshape Washington, and Representative Gaetz is the perfect man to make the DOJ great again,” said the source, who was granted anonymity to share internal thinking. “Senators will hear from their constituents that they support the congressman.”
Trump allies have called on the Justice Department to criminally investigate Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Smith has led Trump’s criminal prosecution in two federal cases, while James has won a $355 million civil judgment against Trump’s companies.
As attorney general, Gaetz would be in a strong position to determine the course of the January 6 riot cases.
After the riot, Gaetz claimed without evidence that it was antifa, and not a pro-Trump mob that believed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, that attacked the Capitol. A Jan. 6 rioter — one of the first men to breach the Capitol — even reported on Gaetz’s plan to challenge the Electoral College votes, which Gaetz outlined at a Turning Points USA summit in late 2020.
Another Jan. 6 defendant, Brandon Straka, has said he was in “regular” contact with Gaetz during a Twitter Space in early 2023, as Gaetz was steering the outcome of the House speaker race.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
