Donald Trump may be testing Republicans' loyalty by nominating divisive Matt Gaetz as attorney-general
Matt Gaetz has been nominated as the next US attorney-general.
You don't have to spend long on Capitol Hill to find opinions about the man Donald Trump has nominated to be the next US attorney-general.
"It must be the worst nomination for a cabinet secretary in American history."
"I do not see him as a serious candidate."
"I was told growing up that if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all."
Blunt assessments, sure, but we're fresh out of a bruising presidential election campaign.
People should be used to words like this by now. It's the type of political bluster and histrionics one side hurls at the other to get a soundbite on the news.
In the case of Matt Gaetz, however, there's a difference you should know.
These scathing criticisms weren't launched from across the congressional aisle. They came from people in his own party.
Since his election triumph on November 5, Trump has been at his palatial Mar-a-Lago base in Palm Beach working out who'll be coming with him to the White House.
The biggest surprise so far came last Wednesday, local time, when the president-elect announced Gaetz — a congressman from Florida — was his pick for the country's highest legal office.
John Bolton, a veteran conservative consultant and diplomat who's served in every Republican administration since Ronald Regan's in 1985, led the critiques.
"Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn't have the character," he told CNN.
"He is a person of moral turpitude."
Gaetz has been the subject of multiple investigations by the house Ethics Committee — a bipartisan group comprising five Republicans and five Democrats.
Its function is to probe the conduct of politicians to ensure elected representatives adhere to the behavioural standards expected of them.
This usually consists of reviewing things such as gifts they might have received, travel they've used public money on, campaign activities and the like.
In Gaetz's case, the Ethics Committee has been investigating whether he was part of a plot that led to the sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, along with multiple other allegations, including whether he engaged in illicit drug use.
Gaetz denies any wrongdoing.
Matt Gaetz has become an influential MAGA member.
He resigned from congress in the hours after Trump nominated him as attorney-general.
Routine, perhaps, given that the 42-year-old can't legally do both jobs at once.
But The New York Times offered another potential motivation when it reported the Ethics Committee's report into Gaetz was due to be handed down about two days later.
With his resignation from congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction over him, and whether its findings will be made public remains to be seen.
Never far from controversy
Gaetz is a fervent Trump loyalist. Many commentators dissecting the nomination in the US last week argued it was a reward for his unwavering support, particularly over the past four years.
His attacks on the former president's adversaries have made headlines.
In February 2019, the night before Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was due to testify before a congressional hearing, Gaetz tweeted: "Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she'll remain faithful to you in prison. She's about to learn a lot."
He later deleted the tweet and apologised.
Gaetz has also gone after former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who's among the GOP's most vocal critics of Trump and voted to impeach him, describing her as a "traitor".
He was also in New York to support Trump earlier this year when he was criminally convicted in his so-called hush money case.
Gaetz has made it clear he agrees with the president-elect's claims that the government has been politically weaponised, including the Justice Department, which he would lead as AG.
He's previously indicated he'd consider abolishing the country's top law-enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, or turning them on Trump's many enemies in a bid for revenge.
He's been in congress since 2017, and before that served in Florida's House of Representatives.
The way Gaetz has communicated his conservative policy positions has also sparked outrage.
He's anti-abortion, and has described women holding rallies advocating for reproductive rights as "overweight" and "ugly".
Tensions between Gaetz and some Republican colleagues were laid bare in January last year, when he was widely seen as holding the party hostage as it attempted to pick a new house majority leader in congress.
What is often a routine procedure took four days and 15 separate votes, with members becoming increasingly frustrated at a small group of GOP hardliners — led by Gaetz — who refused to support Kevin McCarthy until they extracted multiple concessions.
At one point, Mike Rogers, a Republican senator from Alabama, had to be physically restrained by colleagues after he strode across the chamber to confront Gaetz following one of the failed votes.
Eventually, the group relented, but by October the feud reignited when Gaetz, with help from the Democrats and seven other Republicans, voted to remove McCarthy as speaker.
It was mainly over disagreements about the way congress funded the government, with Gaetz concerned McCarthy was not pushing back hard enough on the Biden White House's spending.
Mike Rogers (far right) is restrained by colleagues amid a spat with Matt Gaetz in congress last year.
Gaetz will soon face his own vote, this time in the Senate, which must rubber-stamp the most major appointments for an incoming White House administration.
The process takes place around inauguration day in January and is designed to ensure there's transparency about who's running government portfolios.
Rejections are rare and Republicans control the Senate, meaning Gaetz should in theory sail into the job, so long as every senator from his party backs him.
However, several GOP members in the chamber have already flagged Trump's pick would likely face significant hurdles gaining enough support to become AG.
Some, like South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, have encouraged colleagues to "give Matt a chance".
Gaetz's old nemesis, McCarthy, had a more pessimistic perspective on Bloomberg Television, saying: "Look, Gaetz won't get confirmed. Everybody knows that."
Trump has pledged to return to Washington and dismantle the checks and balances he saw as roadblocks to enacting his policy agenda in his first term as president.
Analysts say Trump's attempts to install Gaetz as AG will, if nothing more, be an early test of that.
Republican senators will have to lay their cards bare in a public vote on an appointment the president-elect has described as one that will "make Americans proud of the Department of Justice once again".
Trump will be able to see who's prepared to back his ideas, no matter how outlandish they may be.
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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