The Matt Gaetz Nomination Will Test GOP Senators

From the Dispatch Politics on The Dispatch

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Up to Speed President-elect Donald Trump unveiled some of his most controversial nominees for Cabinet positions yet, announcing Wednesday he had selected former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who has made several dubious statements about foreign policy, to be his director of national intelligence. "I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength," Trump said in a statement. The next day, the president-elect announced the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has made unfounded and even conspiratorial claims about vaccines and other health matters. "Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!" Trump said of his choice.

Trump also announced , during a Thursday night reception at Mar-a-Lago for the America First Policy Institute, that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is his pick for secretary of the Interior. Burgum rose from relative political obscurity as a small-state governor to the short list for Trump's running mate after his run for the presidential nomination earlier this year. And earlier on Thursday, Trump announced that former Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia was his choice to run the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Senate Republicans elected John Thune , the four-term Republican from South Dakota, as their new leader on Wednesday. Currently the conference whip and No. 2 Republican in the Senate, Thune defeated Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on the second ballot after Sen. Rick Scott of Florida finished third on the first ballot. Thune is the first new leader for the Senate Republican conference since 2007, when Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was elected to the top job. While McConnell maintained a solid hold on his conference and was broadly popular among Republican senators, he clashed repeatedly with Trump during and after the president-elect's first term. And while it was clear that several Trump allies preferred Scott to Thune, Trump himself did not weigh in on the leadership race. Republicans will control a majority of Senate seats (53) in January, making Thune the chamber's majority leader.

Republicans in the House of Representatives, meanwhile, renominated Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana for speaker on Wednesday, the same day the Associated Press confirmed the GOP had won enough races to retain its majority , albeit narrowly. Unlike the Senate, where Thune's top perch was secured by a secret-ballot vote of the Republican conference, Johnson must still stand for a public election on the House floor, with members of both parties voting, and secure 218 votes. That will occur after the new Congress is sworn into office in January.

Is Rep. Mike Lawler preparing to run for governor of New York? The Republican was just elected to a second term in his competitive Hudson River Valley district last week, but is already fielding questions about whether he'll challenge the incumbent, Democrat Kathy Hochul, in 2026. "We'll find out," Lawler said when asked by a reporter Thursday. "But I'll tell you this: New Yorkers deserve better. One-party rule does not work in Albany."

'I Want to See Everything' The U.S. Senate was back in session Wednesday afternoon after more than a month in recess, and seemingly back to normal. Senators filed into the Capitol for the final round of votes of the day. Reporters waited in the hallways and by elevators to grab quotes from them. It looked like a typical day in the upper house of Congress.

But then President-elect Donald Trump announced that Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida would be his pick for attorney general, and everything changed. The Capitol Hill press corps swarmed Senate Republicans, trying to solicit their immediate reactions to the appointment. Most were mum on it, deferring to the fact the Senate would exercise its role of advice and consent.

"I don't really know him other than his public persona, so we'll handle it like any other nomination, and then we'll do our job as providing advice and consent and see how it goes, but I don't have any basis on which to judge him at this point," said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings for Gaetz's confirmation.

But by the next day, Republicans had formulated their thoughts a bit more.

"Here's my answer to ... Matt Gaetz," Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told reporters Thursday as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He held up a picture of Admiral Rachel Levine, the transgender woman currently serving as assistant secretary of health, and Sam Brinton, a bisexual, gender-nonconforming former mid-level official at the Department of Energy under President Joe Biden. (Brinton accepted a plea deal this summer after being accused of stealing a fashion designer's luggage and is no longer employed at the department.)

"Did you harass Democrat senators on those nominees?" Johnson asked the gathered reporters.

While many were expecting controversial nominees for Trump's incoming administration—including former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—the Gaetz appointment was a genuine surprise. The four-term congressman is a firebrand in the House of Representatives, a mainstay on far-right media, and the leader of the successful effort last fall to eject Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

But a bigger obstacle ahead for Gaetz's confirmation may be his personal character and whether enough Republican senators will look past allegations of sexual misconduct.

The Department of Justice spent years investigating Gaetz for alleged sex trafficking before ultimately declining to bring charges against him. But when Trump announced his nomination, the Florida congressman was still under investigation by the House Committee on Ethics regarding allegations that he "engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct." Later on Wednesday, however, Gaetz resigned his House seat, ostensibly to allow House Republicans to fill his seat in a timely manner. Not long after that, news broke that the Ethics Committee had prepared to release the report on its investigation as soon as Friday.

Now, with Gaetz out of Congress, it is unclear whether the report will be made public and whether its findings will factor into what is shaping up to be a battle between Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate. In the next couple months before what would be a January hearing, Republicans will make their decisions on whether to greenlight the controversial nominee. The incoming Senate GOP majority will control 53 seats. With a simple majority required to both overcome filibusters of executive branch nominees and approve them in a floor vote—and presuming Democratic opposition is unanimous—Gaetz could sustain three Republican defections, thanks to Vice President-elect J.D. Vance's tie-breaking vote in his role as president of the Senate.

Republican senators whom Dispatch Politics heard from gave mixed responses on whether they wanted to see the ethics committee report.

"We need to have complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president," Cornyn told reporters Thursday. "I'm sure it's not in his best interest to have any surprises." Pressed on whether he wanted to see the Ethics Committee's report, he replied, "I want to see everything."

His colleagues on the committee were less eager to address the matter. Asked whether the Senate could subpoena the report from the committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said only that he would "leave it up to them," apparently referring to the Ethics Committee. Reporters also asked Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas as he entered an elevator if he wanted access to the report. He stood silently and smiled as the door closed.

Others downplayed the significance of gaining access to the report. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told Dispatch Politics information on Gaetz's background would come out during the vetting, regardless of whether the report is made available to senators or not.

"We'll have a full and fair confirmation process, and my view and expectation is senators will be given all of the relevant information," he said. "There's gonna be FBI background checks on these folks. So, I don't think you have to go troll for the information somewhere. Anything that's relevant, I think, will come to us."

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who does not sit on the Judiciary Committee, said she had never met Gaetz but added that she had concerns about the practices of the Ethics Committee.

"Maybe this has changed now, but when I was in the House, people could file ethics complaints against House members anonymously, and it would cost those people hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend themselves against an anonymous complaint," she told Dispatch Politics. "And so, the House Ethics Committee is not the most ethical committee. ... The fact that the House Ethics Committee is involved does not necessarily mean it's a fair process."

She said that she would take the opportunity to see the report if she had it, but that she would "take it with a grain of salt." Some Republicans senators may feel differently, particularly Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who reacted coolly to Gaetz's nomination.

The report remains under wraps and may never be publicized. But ABC News reported Thursday afternoon, after we talked to the senators quoted in this story, that the woman at the center of the Justice Department's investigation into Gaetz testified to the Ethics Committee that the congressman had sex with her when she was 17.

It is unclear what the specific whip count for Republican senators on Gaetz is at this point, but Majority Leader-elect John Thune said on Fox News Thursday night that he did not know whether Gaetz could be confirmed.

"There certainly are some skeptics, but he deserves a process," Thune told the network's Bret Baier on Special Report.

Notable and Quotable "The main issue with Matt Gaetz is that he used his office to prosecute his political opponents and authorized federal agents to harass parents who were peacefully protesting at school board meetings. Oh wait, that's actually Merrick Garland, the current attorney general."

—Vice President-elect J.D. Vance in a post on X, November 13, 2024