If he’s confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s legal professional normal, former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz will substitute Merrick Garland, a onetime Supreme Court docket nominee who served two prior stints within the Justice Division, labored as a company litigator, and served on the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for greater than twenty years, together with seven years as chief choose. Garland’s predecessor, William Barr, likewise had beforehand labored for the Justice Division, together with as legal professional normal through the George H.W. Bush administration, along with earlier authorized work on the CIA and in personal follow.
Happening the list of attorneys normal earlier than Barr, you will note folks with in depth authorized expertise, together with former prosecutors, Justice Division officers, judges, and state attorneys normal. Gaetz, against this, is a 42-year-old graduate of William & Mary Regulation Faculty who briefly labored for a legislation agency in Fort Walton Seashore earlier than coming into state politics in 2010, two years after he was admitted to the Florida bar. He served in Florida’s legislature for six years earlier than he was elected to characterize the state’s 1st Congressional District in 2016.
Gaetz’s skimpy authorized background will not be the one purpose many individuals, together with Republican colleagues in addition to Democrats, have been dismayed by Trump’s alternative. As Cause‘s C.J. Ciaramella famous, Rep. Mike Simpson (R–Idaho) “summed up the overall response” on Capitol Hill with this response to information of the nomination: “Are you shittin’ me?” When requested what he thought of Gaetz as legal professional normal, Sen. John Cornyn (R–Texas) was a bit extra diplomatic, saying, “I am making an attempt to soak up all of this.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) said Gaetz is “not a critical candidate.” The New York Occasions describes him as “probably the most reviled members of his convention.”
To make certain, politicians might be “reviled” for good or dangerous causes. A legislator who shakes issues up by standing on precept and resisting enterprise as traditional in Congress, which is how Gaetz is apt to painting himself, is sure to antagonize the institution. However in Gaetz’s case, the primary supply of intraparty hostility is the notion that he’s a light-weight showboat who’s determined for consideration, keen on political stunts, inclined towards intemperate rhetoric, vindictive, and keen to start out fires simply to see stuff burn.
In these respects, Gaetz resembles Trump, whom he has vociferously defended for years. As Trump sees it, Gaetz’s loyalty is his most important qualification to run the Justice Division. However it raises apparent considerations for anybody who worries that Trump will act on his usually expressed need to punish his political opponents as soon as he’s again in energy. Intalling a sycophant on the prime of the Justice Division would go a great distance towards serving to him ship on these threats.
Gaetz’s allegiance to Trump, in fact, hardly counts as a strike in opposition to him within the present Republican Occasion. In any case, his tendency to annoy his fellow Republicans predates his connection to the previous and future president, and it appears to mirror obnoxious persona traits reasonably than controversial coverage positions.
As a state consultant in 2015, Gaetz opposed a “revenge porn” invoice that made it a first-degree misdemeanor to submit sexually express images on an internet site with out the topic’s consent. Understandably, the invoice’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Goodson (R–Titusville), was not pleased about that. However there was an extra aspect to their dispute.
“There may be private animosity between Goodson, a 64-year-old highway contractor with a drawl who generally turns into tongue-tied throughout debates, and Gaetz, a 33-year-old lawyer with a pointy wit however an often-condescending method,” Florida Pattern reported. “Throughout a session on the Home flooring final yr, Gaetz peppered Goodson with questions on an arcane piece of laws coping with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Fee. The interrogation seemed to be an try to make Goodson seem unprepared or silly.” Throughout that change, a microphone caught Goodson calling Gaetz an “asshole.”
That evaluation would later be echoed by Republicans who labored alongside Gaetz in Congress. His type was exemplified by his resolution to wear a gas mask throughout a Home debate about COVID-19 spending in early March 2020. There have been sound causes to query the federal government’s response to the pandemic, together with state and native restrictions in addition to the eventual approval of $6.2 trillion in federal spending that was rife with fraud and waste. However in line with Gaetz himself, he was not mocking the federal government’s response.
When Washington Submit reporter Philip Rucker said Gaetz had “made gentle of [the] coronavirus by sporting a gasoline masks,” the congressman implausibly insisted that his stunt had been misunderstood. “Made gentle?!?!” he wrote on Twitter. “I used to be fairly critical. The menace to Congress is actual, as I defined, primarily based on journey and habits like selfies and handshakes.” Gaetz, in brief, acquired the eye he needed with out making any substantive level, not to mention conducting something significant.
That’s how Gaetz’s critics characterised his finally profitable battle to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) as Home speaker. Whereas Gaetz stated he was taking a stand for fiscal restraint, McCarthy said Gaetz was taking revenge for an ethics investigation he blamed on the speaker.
Though solely Gaetz is aware of his true motivation, it appears clear that authorities shutdowns of the kind he faulted McCarthy for avoiding via a cope with Democrats “do not meaningfully cut back the scale or price of presidency,” as Cause‘s Eric Boem famous final yr. Nor has McCarthy’s alternative by Rep. Mike Johnson (R–La.) yielded any enchancment within the hole between income and spending, which elevated from $1.7 trillion in fiscal yr 2023 to more than $1.8 trillion in fiscal yr 2024 as outlays rose from $6.1 trillion to $6.8 trillion.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), a fiscal conservative who didn’t help McCarthy’s removing, thought Johnson needs to be fired. “We’re steering every thing towards what [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer desires,” Massie said in April. “If the nation likes Chuck Schumer, then the nation ought to like what Speaker Johnson has achieved within the Home.”
No matter you make of McCarthy’s ouster, Gaetz’s recklessness was on full show in his defenses of Trump. On the evening earlier than former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was scheduled to testify earlier than the Home Oversight Committee in February 2019, Gaetz directed a tweet at him: “Do your spouse & father-in-law find out about your girlfriends? Possibly tonight could be a superb time for that chat. I’m wondering if she’ll stay devoted while you’re in jail. She’s about to study loads…”
When Democrats accused Gaetz of making an attempt to intimidate Cohen, Gaetz defended the tweet. “This is not witness tampering,” he said. “That is witness testing. I do not threaten anyone.” He later reconsidered that response, deleting the tweet and apologizing to Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.). “Whereas it’s important 2 create context across the testimony of liars like Michael Cohen, it was NOT my intent to threaten, as some imagine I did,” he wrote. “I am deleting the tweet & I ought to have chosen phrases that higher confirmed my intent. I am sorry.”
After the 2020 election, Gaetz joined 138 different Home Republicans in objecting to electoral votes for Joe Biden. When Trump supporters enraged at Biden’s supposedly phony victory invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Gaetz sought guilty leftist provocateurs for the riot. “Among the individuals who breached the Capitol immediately weren’t Trump supporters,” he said on the Home flooring the subsequent day. “They have been masquerading as Trump supporters and, in truth, have been members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”
Quickly afterward, Gaetz went on TV to criticize Rep. Liz Cheney (R–Wyo.) and different Republicans who had condemned Trump’s habits earlier than and through the riot. Gaetz is “placing folks in jeopardy,” McCarthy complained in a cellphone name with different Republican leaders. “And he does not have to be doing this. We noticed what folks would do within the Capitol, you realize, and these folks got here ready with rope, with every thing else.”
Per week after the riot, Gaetz was nonetheless embracing Trump’s stolen-election fantasy, saying, “President Trump is preventing to EXPOSE election fraud and guarantee there’s integrity in each US election shifting ahead.” Months later, he traveled the nation with one other Trump loyalist, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.), arguing that “audits” would validate the previous president’s baseless claims of systematic election fraud.
Gaetz has described himself as a “libertarian populist,” and his coverage positions are the combined bag you would possibly anticipate primarily based on that complicated label. “I imagine you possibly can basically agree that the federal government is dangerous at doing stuff but in addition perceive that we can not bend massive authorities to the need of massive enterprise so simply via authorized bribes we name marketing campaign donations,” he told Vainness Honest in 2020. “I am a unique form of Republican, and I believe we’re in a time of political realignment made potential by the Trump presidency.”
Gaetz recognized himself with “the pro-science wing of the Republican Occasion,” which means he acknowledges that “no person chooses to be homosexual” and that “the earth is warming,” though he expressed a desire for a “pro-innovation” response to local weather change reasonably than an method that “has the federal government controlling every thing.” His deference to science, he stated, additionally led him to the conclusion that “the federal authorities has lied to our nation for a technology about marijuana.”
As a state legislator in 2015, Gaetz supported the repeal of Florida’s ban on adoptions by same-sex {couples}. However he criticized Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court docket ruling recognizing a constitutional proper to same-sex marriage, saying the problem needs to be left to the states. Per that place, Gaetz opposed repealing the Protection of Marriage Act as a member of Congress in 2022.
In 2018, Gaetz was one among 182 Home Republicans who supported the Trump-backed FIRST STEP Act, a package deal of sentencing and jail reforms. He had a lot much less GOP firm in 2020, when he cosponsored a invoice that may have repealed the federal ban on marijuana, which handed the Home with help from simply 5 Republicans.
Gaetz has lengthy been a staunch advocate of the correct to armed self-defense. As a state legislator, he supported open carry and fought makes an attempt to revise or repeal Florida’s “stand your floor” legislation. Marion Hammer, former president of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation, described him as “probably the most pro-gun members to have ever served within the Florida Legislature.”
Gaetz has expressed his opposition to abortion in characteristically inflammatory and insulting phrases. “Why is it that the ladies with the least chance of getting pregnant are those most fearful about having abortions?” he wondered in a 2022 speech. “No person desires to impregnate you in case you seem like a thumb.”
Whereas a few of Gaetz’s positions will attraction to libertarians, his fame within the Home and his lack of related expertise are apt to provide senators pause. And that is with out contemplating the allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use, and monetary irregularities.
In 2022, federal prosecutors determined to not pursue prices in opposition to Gaetz after trying into claims involving intercourse with a 17-year-old and transportation of girls allegedly paid for intercourse. The principle purpose, The Washington Submit reported, was that prosecutors had doubts concerning the credibility of the witnesses on which they must rely.
Gaetz has at all times denied the sexual allegations. However an investigation by the Home Ethics Committee lined a number of the similar floor, together with allegations that Gaetz used unlawful medication, “misused state identification data, transformed marketing campaign funds to private use, accepted impermissible presents below Home guidelines, and shared inappropriate photos or movies on the Home flooring,” The New York Occasions reports.
In keeping with the Occasions, the committee was about to launch “a extremely essential report” about Gaetz when he gave up his seat in anticipation of his new job. Though the committee not has any authority over Gaetz, the Occasions says, “it was not instantly clear whether or not it might nonetheless launch its findings.”
Considered one of Gaetz’s Republican detractors, Rep. Max Miller (R–Ohio), stated he was pleased to see him go. Most Home Republicans “are giddy about it,” Miller told the Occasions. “Get him out of right here.” He added that he’s trying ahead to Gaetz’s affirmation listening to. “I am stunned that Matt would do that to himself,” he stated. “I wish to go get an enormous bag of popcorn and pull up a front-row seat to that present.”
