Having reclaimed the presidency on November 5 of this year, Donald Trump has wasted no time assembling the members of his new cabinet. Conspicuously absent from his list of new agency and department directors are any previous directors from his former administration. He was clearly dissatisfied with most of the people who assumed those posts in the past, undoubtedly because they tried to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses. That will not be a problem for Trump going forward.
It already appears that Trump is surrounding himself with a cast of characters so sycophantic and corrupt that they will be only too happy to execute his orders, no matter how dangerous that may be to our republic. Civil servants more loyal to the Constitution than to Mr. Trump will be replaced by individuals so amoral that we may never get rid of him. Given that distinct possibility, it may be time for us to become better acquainted with Team Trump.
Today, let us consider Matt Gaetz, who was nominated to fill the position of attorney general. Upon being identified as the next A.G. of the United States, Gaetz promptly resigned his seat in Congress. The timing could not have been more fortuitous for Gaetz, because the results of the House Ethics Committee report detailing what could charitably be described as previous “lapses in judgment” would not be released if he were no longer a congressman. This led to a tug-of-war between the Senate and the House for control of that report, but the congressman has flamed out so quickly that the report may now be irrelevant.
Matt Gaetz is an interesting fellow: He was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., the son and grandson of two prominent Florida politicians. He matriculated at William and Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Va. Following his graduation, he worked as a lawyer for several years. The Tampa Bay Times describes Mr. Gaetz’s legal career as follows:
From 2009 to 2016, Gaetz argued at least seven cases at the trial level in Okaloosa County … The seven cases in court records ranged widely in substance. In 2008, Gaetz represented two separate clients for speeding tickets. In 2009, he represented a local restaurant, the Crab Trap, in a workers’ compensation case. That same year, he began representing a local aircraft maintenance company that was pursuing a negligence case.
In short, Mr. Gaetz has a legal résumé so thin that you can see through it.
Gaetz subsequently ran for the United States House of Representatives in 2017, where his career as a congressman was as unimpressive as his career in law.
His signature achievements as a legislator included wearing a gas mask onto the floor of the House to protest early COVID mask mandates; treating his colleagues to home videos showing him participating in drug-fueled orgies where he paid a 17-year-old girl, and a number of other women, for sex ($10,000 worth, to be exact); committing campaign finance and emoluments violations; obstructing investigations into his nefarious activities; and single-handedly ousting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his leadership position while nearly coming to blows with current Speaker Mike Johnson in the process. Those behaviors are more consistent with those of an overgrown frat boy than a United States congressman.
Matt Gaetz, along with a number of his MAGA brethren, attempted to overturn the 2020 election on behalf of Donald Trump; then, failing to seize power through subterfuge and violence on January 6, he preemptively requested a pardon from the outgoing president.
I may be alone in this reasoning, but it seems peculiar to me that someone who claims to be innocent of wrongdoing, and in fact has not been charged with wrongdoing, would need to request a pardon—but evidently it is a thing, because many of his congressional confreres made that same request. Trump pardoned none of them, undoubtedly furious that they failed to achieve their mission.
Trump is no fan of losers.
But Trump’s lifelong contempt for “suckers and losers” is dwarfed by his endless hunger for adoration and obeisance. Thus, Gaetz became part of the caravan of congressional supplicants who made a beeline for Mar-a-Lago following the failed coup attempt. Given that Donald Trump had decided to put him in charge of the Department of Justice, it appears that with regular applications of flattery and groveling, one’s pathetic résumé is no barrier to high office.
As stated in the Florida Sun Sentinel recently, the appointment “lays bare the depth of Trump’s contempt for our vital national law enforcement apparatus and his determination to use it as a blunt instrument to seek revenge on his opponents.”
Steve Bannon, agent-provocateur of the far-right media ecosystem and recently released from prison, crowed last week that Matt Gaetz was going to take a “blowtorch” to the DOJ. I suspect that Mr. Bannon was correct. As the various cabinet appointments begin to take shape, it is clear that Mr. Trump is positioning himself to do exactly as he pleases, without impediment, including setting a match to American democracy.
Members of Trump’s former administration attempted to constrain some of his more craven impulses. These individuals were referred to as “the adults in the room,” those who attempted to prevent his most egregious violations of the Constitution and presidential norms. They told him that no, he could not deploy the military to shoot the legs off of peaceful protestors exercising their First Amendment rights. They told him that no, he could not utilize taxpayer dollars to buy the country of Greenland—not that it was ever for sale. They told him that no, he could not turn the Rio Grande River into an alligator-filled moat to deter illegal migration at our southern border. They told him that no, he could not use the United States military to seize voting machines.
And those very people, those “adults in the room,” will be some of the first individuals to be charged, tried, and sentenced for… well, the content of the indictments won’t really matter, because the charges will be nonsensical. Beginning on January 21, 2025, every military commander, every district attorney, every prosecutor, and every judge who ever attempted to prevent Donald Trump from engaging in unethical, immoral, or illegal activities will certainly find themselves in the A.G.’s crosshairs. You can undoubtedly add the former members of Congress who attempted to expose Trump’s plot to subvert an election for his own benefit.
Matt Gaetz could hardly wait to roll up his sleeves and dash off indictments in service to his leader. Gaetz had already been given a helping hand by the Supreme Court, since they have now made clear that Mr. Trump’s actions, no matter how despicable, cannot be construed as crimes—even when they are, in fact, crimes. They have also ceded control of the DOJ directly to Mr. Trump, so it seems reasonable to predict that the Justice Department will now serve one purpose only: to do the bidding of the most mentally ill president in American history. Perhaps the Justice Department will be renamed to more accurately reflect its new purpose: The Office of Presidential Retribution, perhaps, or given Trump’s passion for branding, Strike Force Trump.
It should be noted that Mr. Gaetz engendered such universal revulsion in the halls of Congress that he was unlikely to have been confirmed at all, and this would explain Mr. Trump’s demand for “recess” confirmations of his proposed cabinet members. And since Trump knew that Mr. Gaetz, along with a number of other cabinet nominees, would never survive a rigorous background check, the president-elect intended to end-run that process as well.
A few days back, when asked by reporters if he would pull Mr. Gaetz’s nomination in light of the fact that none of his congressional colleagues can stand him, Trump was uncharacteristically succinct:
“No.”
But it now appears that as of Thursday afternoon, Matt Gaetz has withdrawn from consideration for the A.G. position. In spite of his best efforts to schmooze the senators he has spent the past seven years savaging, it was clearly too little, too late.
Before anyone begins to breathe a sigh of relief, Mr. Trump often surrounds himself with “informal” advisors, and we may yet see Mr. Gaetz slinking hither and thither in some other West Wing capacity. It seems likely that we have not seen the last of him. There is an additional possibility that Mr. Gaetz could return to Congress, but he might be required to compete in, and win, a special election in Florida in order to be seated. Additionally, because so many of his colleagues in the House simply cannot abide him, they might release the ethics report upon his return and simply throw him out.
Another note of caution: Mr. Trump will assuredly select someone just as morally bankrupt as Mr. Gaetz for the attorney general position, someone who might not have quite the same level of overt sleaziness but who will nevertheless capitulate to all of Trump’s demands. The president elect will simply trade one invertebrate for another.
Next week: HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—if he lasts that long.
